thePlatform Unveils Next-Generation Video Commerce System

SEATTLE, Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- thePlatform, the leading white-label video publishing company and independent subsidiary of Comcast, unveiled its next-generation video commerce system built to address the need for increasingly sophisticated, transactional video business models. As content libraries grow, and windows of availability fluctuate, media and entertainment companies are seeking creative new approaches to monetize their premium video libraries complimenting pay walls, advertising, or authenticated subscriptions.

thePlatform's mpx's video commerce system provides a robust ecommerce engine to power next-generation digital video storefronts across computers, tablets, and mobile phones. It enables better merchandizing of video by giving consumers new ways to purchase highly-customized video packages and promotions. The new video commerce system includes an automated workflow, applying pricing templates to videos as they are ingested and published.

"The premium video marketplace is maturing beyond traditional monetization vehicles," said Marty Roberts, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for thePlatform. "Companies are seeking a unified platform, like mpx, that brings together advertising, subscriptions, rentals, and purchases in one central place. Our new video commerce system will enable customers to differentiate and sell highly-customized video packages and promotions across screens."

Beyond Advertising and Subscriptions: Transactional Video

thePlatform's mpx system currently provides robust advertising-supported and subscription-based video offerings. For example, its next-generation TV Everywhere suite delivers tailored channel and content packages designed to extend the value of consumers' TV subscriptions. With today's introduction of its video commerce system, thePlatform is providing that same kind of industry-leading customization for single purchases of shows, seasons, and more.

With mpx, companies can leverage extensive metadata to set dynamic new business policies that take advantage of their content libraries, and create better online storefronts for consumers. Beyond basic pay-per-view or download-to-own, thePlatform can configure season passes for TV shows, movie bundles for sequels and trilogies, or create promotions based on actors, directors, specific content categories and more. In categories like news, for example, companies can use mpx to automatically set policies that make the news video free (ad supported) for a short window, then subscription-based during the pay wall window, and finally moved into a transactional, pay-per-view archive. 

Next-Gen Video Commerce System

Key benefits of mpx's new video commerce system enable customers to:

• Create and apply pricing templates for transactional video business, including pay-per-view, season passes, download-to-own, and movie bundles for sequels and trilogies;
• Design custom content packages based on categories, such as action films, audience groups such as kids, and fan-favorites including actors and directors;
• Utilize advanced product tagging capabilities to connect media to the storefront, enforce pricing tiers, and allow deep search capability for consumers;
• Build in discount windows and special promotions that can be easily applied and retired to multiple products with one click;
• Support internationalization features including multi-currency price scheduling and support for multiple localized product descriptions;
• View purchase history, credit users with extra video views, issue refunds, and order reports;
• Use all, or some, of the modular commerce components including a payment gateway, taxation engine integration, ledger, and fulfillment via thePlatform's entitlement service; and
• Leverage mpx's open APIs, secure content protection and delivery, and enterprise-class reliability to power custom storefront UIs.

thePlatform publishes video and other media to PCs, mobile devices and TVs. Media companies rely on thePlatform's mpx system as their open, central hub for managing, monetizing and syndicating billions of professionally produced video views annually. thePlatform currently provides online video management services to numerous programmers, leading media companies, and five of the top TV service providers in North America, including the largest TV Everywhere deployments. 

Additional details about thePlatform can be found at www.thePlatform.com. 

About thePlatform

thePlatform™ is the leading white-label video management and publishing company. Media companies rely on thePlatform as their open, central hub for managing, monetizing, and syndicating billions of professionally produced video views annually. The company's services provide unmatched versatility for designing and supporting video businesses on PCs, mobile, and TV. Customers include: Cablevision, CBC, Comcast, Cox Communications, E!, the Golf Channel, HIT Entertainment, Liberty Global, NBC Local Media, NBC Sports Regional Networks, Outdoor Channel, Oxygen, Sprout, the Style Network, Rogers, Shaw Media, Style, Syfy, Time Warner Cable, Travel Channel Media, truTV, USA Network, and numerous others. With more than a decade of service history, thePlatform is an independent subsidiary of Comcast based in Seattle, Wash. For more information visit: www.thePlatform.com.

SOURCE thePlatform