After relaunching as a male-centric Web video network last fall, the Metacafe Entertainment Network has jumped from 10 million uniques a month to 33 million, underscoring the benefits of operating as a vertical. Beet.TV caught up with Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe, at the company’s offices in San Francisco recently to discuss the new approach of the site.
With video sharing well established already, the key to changing was to focus on serving a vertical so M.E.N. opted for young male audiences with a focus on entertainment. “You see this in TV as well…Verticals now define how we consume entertainment,” he says in the video interview.
But the young male vertical is one that others are going after too, so Hachenburg emphasizes that the M.E.N. focus in on premium videos from gaming companies and movie studios as well as its own originals such as “Unfiltered“.
Advertisers include studios, TV networks, video game publishers and consumer brands targeting men, while M.E.N. also counts those like-minded sites in its network. For more insight into how this transformation is helping the video site Metacafe stay relevant as a broader network, check out this interview.
Daisy Whitney
