Azureus announced today that it has opened up its online video distribution platform, Vuze (see our earlier review), offering content producers, big and small, the chance to distribute and monetize their content in a variety of ways including ad-supported streaming and download-to-own. The company also revealed that it has reached the milestone of 10 million unique downloads for its Mac and Windows-based client, with the company adding 2 million new “viewers” in September alone.
Dubbed the Vuze Open Entertainment Platform, content creators can mix and match from a variety of business models: free or ad-supported streaming and downloads, as well as paid-for rental and download-to-own. Additionally, producers can decide whether or not to employ Windows Media DRM, and Vuze soon hopes to be able to offer watermarking as an alternative.
In a phone briefing, Azureus CEO Gilles BianRosa told me that since we’re in the very early days of online video, the Vuze platform is designed to help content creators experiment with digital distribution and the various associated business models. For example, a producer might choose to offer a lower quality version of their program as a free download and charge for the HD-version.
Vuze’s PC-to-TV strategy
I asked BianRosa if, like a number of its competitors, the company had any plans to offer its service via a set-top-box, in order to make it easier to get Vuze content onto a television. BianRosa explained that there a number of reasons why doing so was not currently a priority.
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