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Beachfront Builder's Newest App Combines Video Content with Social Media

One of thebig takeaways from 2013 is that mobile is quickly becoming the go-to device for online video. The other is that in every which way you can figure, marketers are making social connections with consumers. Brands don’t sell. They relate.

Beachfront Builder has seen those trend stories too, and today will roll out its Builder 2.0 that lets content creators and publishers create and manager video apps with social community connections built in. That means, hypothetically, the same app that holds the PewDiePie & Friends content from YouTube also would let the user easily interact on PewDiePie Facebook connection (or whatever other social place you could find him)--without leaving the app.

The Beachfront Builder, in its first version gave video publishers a platform they could use to create an app that could be viewed on all screens. It allowed big customers including (PewDiePie’s) Maker Studios and Big Frame Networks and Freemantle Studions to build apps they could use to monetize their multichannel YouTube networks. Builder 2.0  now makes it possible to package that video app with social channels and create what CEO Frank Sinton hopes is a more efficient (and better monetized) mobile community. It gives publishers a broader neighborhood to find revenue.

(He’s due to give more details at the Video Nuze leadership forum conference this morning and the company details its new 2.0 at www.beachfrontbuilder.com.)

That community aspect can hardly be overemphasized. YouTube thrives on the interaction between users and creators. Take a look, for instance, at this recent video from the aforementioned Mr. PewDiePie, and you can’t come away without recognizing some deep (silly, but deep and also deeply silly) connections are being made on channels a good portion of the nation never heard of.

That they’re making that connection through mobile devices is almost a given. Adobe Digital Benchmark study says mobile video viewership grew 300% in 2012, and if anything this year mobile’s video connection has gone from a kind of shock and awe stat to just-the-way-things-are. You can pick any number of studies showing that trend, coupled with the power of social media.   

The ad portion of Builder 2.0 includes a pretty good set of analytics that details user activity to aid ad targeting, with info like name, gender, email, location, in-depth video and social tracking. That allows a publisher to create campaigns across Android and iOS apps. Publishers pay a portion of their ad revenue back to Beachfront Builder.    

But to Sinton’s mind, obviously, they should want to be there because that’s where the pulse of  Internet commerce and communication is going.   With thousands of YouTube channels, chances are slim users will find a lot of them often. The app—Beachfront Builder has created more than 700 in its first iteration--separates the channel into its own showcase.  And then the 2.0 version of the app creates the sense of social staring users in the face on their mobile devices. “That’s what we’re betting on anyway,” Sinton says.  

pj@mediapost.com

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