Thursday, September 11, 2008

Democratic convention led online video views

By Mass High Tech Staff

Online video viewing of the Democratic and Republican national conventions was anything but balanced, according to data released Tuesday on the corporate blog of Boston-based online video analysis software maker Visible Measures Corp.

As of Monday, said the report, the Democratic presidential ticket attracted more than 3.7 million online views of their speeches, versus 2.4 million for the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees. In addition, while Democratic candidate Barack Obama drew the majority of views —  about 3.3 million — it was the Republican vice president nominee Sarah Palin who carried her party’s ticket, with 2 million views.

The Visible Measures blog, written by the company’s vice president of marketing and analytics Matt Cutler, also points out a distinct contradiction between video views and television views. According to the Nielson ratings for the parties’ respective conventions, 38.5  million Americans watched Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s speech, while 500,000 fewer people watched Obama’s.

Overall, the Democratic National Convention drew 7.8 million viral video views across 278 distinct video placements, while the Republican National Convention attracted less than 3 million views across 265 unique video placements.

Founded by CEO and Creative Aspects Inc. founder Brian Shin in 2005, Visible Measures makes software for the analysis of online video. The company counts Boston-based public relations and marketing firm Hill Holiday and Boston.com among its customer base, and has raised $19.3 million in private funding, including a $13.5 million round announced in January of this year.

The company’s investors include California-based Mohr Davidow Ventures and Cambridge’s General Catalyst Partners.