Brightcove

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Brightcove’s business model?

Strengths:
Turnkey software platform for creating & maintaining broadband video channels that was faster than anything else on the market
Early customers included big names like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal creating a roster of reference clients
Bundled software platform service with content delivery network (CDN) fees generated a lot of revenue
AdNet Select advertising strategy was great at tracking impressions and targeting specific consumer groups- a big selling point to advertisers
Truveo search engine gives consumers robust search capability
All tools are branded, like Google

Weakness:
Platform is strong, but not so strong that other engineers couldn’t recreate in 10 months
Customizing the platform for big name clients drained engineering resources
CDN prices were likely to fall and revenue service might dry up, sense of urgency to generate revenue from advertising might lead to bad business decisions
Attracting high quality publishers when shifting more of its customers to revenue sharing arrangement was difficult
Brightcove had trouble identifying their ideal customer or audience
Third party affiliates or niche publishers were leery to give control to Brightcove
Do you want to have to negotiate with one of your competitors for search capability?
Pitching online advertising to companies was difficult; Brightcove was not investing rapidly enough to expand ad sales team