vSocial Releases vQuote, Enabling a Web of "Video Conversations".

Video sampling solution offers new ways to extend, monetize and protect mastered video content

TEMPE, Ariz. -- vSocial, Inc. today announced the availability of vQuote, a video sampling solution that enables video content owners to easily cultivate viral "video conversations" around their videos in the same way that the blogosphere has emerged around user-generated and professionally written content.

vQuote facilitates such conversations by allowing viewers of a video to sample just the portions of the video that are interesting or memorable to them. When such an element is sampled, the derivative sample is automatically linked as a trackback to the content master. Trackbacks ensure not only that links are maintained between the sample and the master, but that mastered content owners can easily determine who is sampling their content.

"vQuote changes the equation for mastered content owners and consumers by reconciling the desire of consumers to personalize meaningful content and make it their own, and content owners' fears of losing control, integrity and monetization of their content," said Mark Sigal, CEO of vSocial.

Examples of the ways that vQuote beta testers have been using the service include:

* Capturing memorable sound bites from a news story or comedy program

* Blogging about specific highlights from presentations and events

* Reviewing specific products or services on a feature-by-feature basis

While the benefit to the consumer of the content is obvious, vQuote also enriches the mastered content owner's content in three ways. One, by dynamically maintaining a trackback to the content master, the intellectual property of the content creator is enhanced since each conversation points back to the master, creating a user-generated web of conversations around the originating content.

Two, as enabled by vSocial's MyBrand functionality (part of its vConnect social networking for video platform), the sampled content maintains the watermark branding of the mastered content, ensuring that brand integrity is maintained from master to derivative.

Three, thanks to vConnect's built-in support for in-video advertising, any ads that are incorporated into the content master pass to the quoted sample, allowing the content creator to gain the monetization benefits of creating conversation-rich content.

In addition to the above capabilities, vQuoted samples can be indexed via deep tags, enabling viewers to directly access just the portions of a video that are most interesting to them. Similarly, time-boxed portions of videos can have inline comments instanced within them, enabling consumers to incorporate commentary directly within the video. Granular controls allow mastered content owners to decide whether they want to enable their content to be sampled, how long samples can be in time duration, etc.

Finally, multiple vQuote-enabled video samples can be combined within vSocial's video roll builder widget to build simple video slide shows showcasing, for example, the most viral sound bits of the week, different perspectives on political topics and highlights from popular TV shows.

All of this functionality works identically both on the vSocial.com site and when accessed on MySpace pages, Facebook content, blogs and other social networking sites. And thanks to vSocial's "site in a box" technology, users can log into their accounts from the remote site (i.e., directly from the player), saving them the time and disruption of having to go to another site.

vQuote is immediately available on vSocial.com and for users of its vConnect social networking for video platform, which includes MyBrand, ProPublisher and Enterprise Community online video offerings. There is no additional cost to use vQuote.

About vSocial

Founded by a team of experienced entrepreneurs that have collectively built 14 different companies, vSocial is a pioneer in the online video space, having launched the initial version of its service way back in 2002. vConnect is a social networking for video platform that enables content owners, portal operators and online marketing organizations to custom brand, target, virally distribute and monetize their message via video. Customers can see-touch-feel the vConnect solution by visiting the company's popular showcase site, vSocial.com, which generates 200,000 unique daily visitors and serves up over 1.5M videos a day. vSocial is headquartered in Arizona, with offices in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.vsocial.com/vconnect.