Vivendi to Launch Web Video Service

Vivendi Universal plans to jump into the online video business, launching a service that lets consumers and independent filmmakers share their digital movies with the public.

Steven Sheiner, chief revenue officer for Vivendi Universal Net USA, said the new MP4.com service would launch soon, possibly within the next 30 days. Following the footsteps of Vivendi subsidiary MP3.com, a pioneering online music service that caters to unsigned artists, MP4.com would provide a distribution point on the Internet for independent video producers.

Unlike MP3.com, however, the new site will emphasize streaming over downloading, Sheiner said. Visitors will be able to play the videos from the site, rather than copying them to their computers and playing them offline.

Vivendi, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, will hardly be the first to enter the online video field, and several previous efforts failed to build a Web-based business around amateur video.

Meanwhile, many consumers with Webcams have gravitated toward free sites that act as online clearinghouses for personal videos.

Sheiner said MP4.com would let video producers post a small amount of video on the site free but would collect fees for larger amounts. If a producer charged viewers to see a video, MP4.com would collect a portion of that revenue, he said.

“Clearly there’s a community out there that wants to publish and self-publish video content,” Sheiner said. With the proliferation of digital video cameras, he predicted “a huge groundswell of independent content” that will be looking for a distributor online.