FreeWheel Unveils Partner Program Representing Integrations With 70+ Companies Including Roku, Brightcove, EyeWonder, and ScanScout

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Video monetization technology company FreeWheel today announced the formation of the PAVE Initiative (Partners Accelerating the Video Economy), a program formalizing 73 integrated partnerships with video distributors, ad networks, video player and content management platforms, creative technologies, and content ID companies.

FreeWheel has spent over two years building systems integrations that enable publishers to access an interconnected set of offerings and services when using the company's ad sales rights and ad serving technology. Moving forward, FreeWheel and the partners will work together to uphold and improve industry standards and create best practices for video revenue operations and technology.

"Integrating with this leading cross-section of companies is an important step for FreeWheel but also a step in the right direction for the entire video ecosystem," said Doug Knopper, co-founder and co-CEO of FreeWheel. "As major publishers and media companies transition towards full digital video strategies, they need to enable distribution, content management, monetization sources, and tracking across multiple screens. It's not realistic for those publishers to create and maintain dozens of flavors of integrations as their video initiatives scale – in fact, it's this lack of collaboration that has held online video back. The PAVE Initiative simply lets publishers focus on building more innovative and profitable video businesses."

FreeWheel has forged partnerships with many different facets of the ecosystem, but four of the most common based on client demand are with distribution channels, online video platforms, video ad networks, and creative technologies.

"As Roku expands the selection of video programming available in the Roku Channel Store, working with FreeWheel is a great fit," said Jim Funk, vice president of business development for Roku. "The ability for our content partners to retain real-time control over in-stream ad space on a living room television represents a major step forward. By integrating the Roku SDK with FreeWheel, Roku becomes an even more attractive distribution platform for top-tier content."

Online video platforms are another critical integration point, as Chris Johnston, director of technology partnerships at Brightcove points out. "The openness of our platform and our robust SDKs and APIs enable our customers and partners to easily build and integrate advanced plug-ins and features to expand the capabilities of the Brightcove platform. Our collaboration with FreeWheel has already enabled many of our customers to expand their video monetization strategies, and we're confident the PAVE Initiative will introduce even more ways for organizations to generate increased advertising revenue from their video content."

Systems integration for each PAVE partner goes beyond creating compatible technologies. These partnerships foster optimal communication and client support practices and are executed within industry standard specifications like the IAB's Advertising Impression Counting Guidelines. The goal is to make it that much easier for advertisers, publishers, and technology providers to scale.

"ScanScout takes pride in constantly innovating to deliver on the objectives of our advertisers and provide maximum value for our publishing partners," said ScanScout CEO Bill Day. "Whether we're creating early applications of a new standard, or something custom on behalf of a mutual client, our work with FreeWheel continues to build out the infrastructure supporting the video economy."

Advertisers also benefit from integrations like those formed through the PAVE Initiative. "Brand advertisers are looking for ways to reach consumers through online video with engaging and interactive experiences," said Michael Griffin, EVP of marketing and strategic development at EyeWonder. "With PAVE, partners from the entire ecosystem are joining forces to reduce friction and make it easy for marketers to buy and execute in-stream advertising at scale, in turn driving ad spend and increasing revenue for the entire industry."

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel offers the most formidable system for digital video ad management and monetization. Built from the ground up by a handful of former DoubleClick executives, FreeWheel's solution-set has already armed companies like Turner Broadcasting Systems, Warner Brothers, CBS Television Distribution, VEVO, Discovery Networks International, and others with the tools and services necessary to extract advertising revenue from video content. For more information, please visit: www.freewheel.tv 

SOURCE FreeWheel