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Metacafe Launches New 'MEN' Network of Entertainment Verticals

Metacafmen

Longtime video destination Metacafe is exploring a new model for its curated, male-targeted content in a "Metacafe Entertainment Network" (MEN) that parses entertainment video content into tighter, deeper niches.

In addition to pulling together some of the movie, sports and gaming videos that Metacafe has been actively curating in recent months, the new MEN destination also pulls together new properties that drill these broad categories more finely. The self-explanatory Sci-Fi Loop, Horror Loop and Gamer Loop promise to delve deeper into the streaming media content for their respective niches. A "Hook" category will feature the hot videos from around the Web and "Babes" will...well, we guess that is pretty self-explanatory too. Also in the MEN network will be Live Sports, an aggregation of sports content and guide to online live events.

Erich Hachenburg, CEO, Metacafe says that the company has been focusing more aggressively on the various entertainment categories and doing so with more carefully curated approaches than visitors might get from a YouTube crawl. "We curate, collect and select," he says. "Where we see the trend now is the idea that it is more than search, but how to find an organized structure of content."

The MEN launch is the next iteration of that process that also sets the company up for a greater distribution play as other platforms evolve. "We're clearly going into the content syndication space," he says, because the tighter vertical organization allows for products like "Sci-Fi Loop" to be discovered and incorporated by the many genre enthusiast sites on the Web. "It strengthens our position with the movie studios and games companies and when we attack mobile and connected TVs." Syndication partners who feature MEN content will also be considered a "Preferred Publisher Partner" to be included on the network.  

Metacafe claims 12 million monthly uniques in the U.S. and 40 million worldwide.
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