Channels.com Builds Breakthrough Program Guide for Professional Web Video.

Model Helps Drive Discovery, Audience and Revenues

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Channels.com today launched a revolutionary new Web video guide providing both consumers and programmers a central location for the discovery and promotion of the best video on the Web. For consumers, Channels.com is an all-in-one video guide where they can view clips and previews and find longer format videos from the best of TV, cable, and broadband programmers. For video programmers and rights holders, Channels is the most effective tool on the Web to increase the number of viewers of their broadband video.

In development for over two years, Channels.com is a fully integrated Web video discovery and promotion system. The Channels.com Web site is the centerpiece of the system. It includes: genre-based guides for video surfing, an integrated video player, on-demand previews and clips, promotional placement, click-thru links to ad-supported videos, RSS feeds, and many other features. Channels doesn't host any video. The site has been designed to provide a seamless consumer experience to play promotional video clips and previews hosted anywhere on the Web. The clips and previews are an important way to attract viewers to ad-supported Web video. In usage testing conducted by Channels during the past year, viewers were 30 times more likely to view ad-supported Web video when related promotional previews and clips were made available.

"The current set of Web video guides and UGC sites don't suit the business models of professional video programmers like TV broadcasters and cable networks," said Channels.com founder and CEO, Sean Doherty. "In developing Channels, we realized that the Web offered the potential to create a central environment where video-clip-surfers can discover great video and be converted into viewers of ad-supported video in one integrated experience - without uploading."

The Channels guide is organized into Playlists that are collections of links to videos related to certain topics - perhaps a primetime TV show or a collection of news stories about a selected subject. A video programmer's control of a Playlist's content and behavior allows the Playlist to be molded to suit the programmer's interests.

The Channels.com system also includes a patent-pending video bookmarking system which, now in private beta, will soon be available more broadly. The Channels Bookmarking Wizard allows anyone to create a video link in the Channels Guide from any video anywhere on the Web. The Bookmarking Wizard has far reaching capabilities for rights holders, video programmers, bloggers, and passionate individuals who wish to create their own sections of the Channels guide with collections of video content they find all around the Web.

Channels Badge Network

The Channels.com Website is tightly integrated with the Channels Badge Network(TM) - a powerful system for programmers to engage millions of new viewers by syndicating their Channels Playlists in an attractive widget on Web sites all over the Internet. Fans can grab the embed code for a Badge from any Playlist and paste it into their Web page. The Channels Badge is updated in real time with the latest updates to the related Playlist. Visitors to the Web page where a badge is embedded have the same experience as the Channels Guide - one click access to video clips and previews, an integrated video player, and promotional links to click-thru to ad-supported video. The Channels Badge Network has enormous potential as a tool for video programmers to build a network of Web sites to which they can exclusively syndicate their video promotion.

Video Programmer Solution

Channels.com has been designed with video programmers' interests in mind. First, Channels does not host any video. Video remains securely hosted wherever the programmer chooses. The Channels Bookmarking Wizard allows video from all over the Web to be added to the Channels Guide and seamlessly embedded in the Channels integrated video player without any uploads and without any action required by the video programmer.

Channels.com is the ultimate way for video programmers to build an audience for Web video simply and securely:

* Create collections of Web video "Playlists" in the Channels Guide around a certain TV show or subject (without uploading any video!).

* In these Playlists, include a combination of free video clips, previews, and click-thru links.

* Offer fans and viewers a realtime image of the Playlist in a "Channels Badge" that can be embedded on any Web page.

Channels is offering video programmers, rights holders, and consumers a revolutionary system for the discovery and promotion of video on the Web. Any video programmer or rights holder can have their content included in the Channels.com guide for free.

"As the volume of broadband video has exploded, a critical need has arisen to provide better search and navigation mechanisms. These will benefit both users and video providers, both of which are highly incented to embrace new guide initiatives," added Will Richmond, President of Broadband Directions LLC, a market intelligence firm specializing in broadband video.

About Channels.com

Channels.com is a consumer guide to the best video on the Web. It is the first public Web site ever offered where video programmers and rights holders can both promote and monetize their video content. Channels.com is based in Palo Alto and San Francisco, California.