• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, July 9, 2013

It seems like a good idea. Today, an Irish-based Website, VideoElephant.com, officially launches a service to package and sell streaming video from a variety of sources that can be used by Websites either as stand-alone features or as part of their own packages.

 It’s cheap and flexible, which seem to be two selling points. Another big one is that once you buy the video clip it’s yours to use again and again, forever. That is the new wrinkle that sets it apart from the few other sites that use a revenue-sharing model with the original licensee.

 From looking at it, the startup seems to have a problem, to Americans, at least. Right now, it gets a lot of content from AFP and Australia’s ABC, which seems to me to make it a little light on American-based content, though I can’t say I looked through each and every one of the 60,000 pieces it has now.

It also gets video from National Geographic, VideoJug, Newsy and other places. The library will just get bigger and bigger. If it takes off, it will also have a lot more video suppliers, no doubt.  

 Websites that want it pay only $100-$150 for video clips, or they can subscribe to constant feeds or bundles where the prices are still awfully low. Emily Duffy, the small company’s marketing executive, says the low price makes it practical for Websites to buy a video clip and monetize it with pre-roll. “They can, very, very quickly, make their money back,” she says, and it’s easy for a site to find what they need. They just go to the site and go shopping for video, indexed to a dozen categories.   

 The idea is that big organizations like AFP or National Geographic just aren’t set up to sell video archives to lots and lots of Websites, and publishers might not have the patience to go fishing for the correct clips. VideoElephant takes the video from those outside sources, and gets 30% of the proceeds from each sale.

 “We’re working on end-to-end solutions” that would make it easier for those sites find pre-roll advertisers, Duffy says.

 “It’s incredibly difficult to source video content quickly,” she says, though sites might want to do it because a piece of video can increase engagement, and at the very least increase time spent on sites. With newspapers and other traditional print-oriented Websites interested in using video but not very ready to do so, VideoElephant  would seem a good place for show biz videos, or travel or food oriented features, at the very least.

 That’s how VideoElephant got its start. Founder and CEO Stephen O’Shaughnessy ran his own travel Website and “he couldn’t believe to find video” to use, or sell his own to other sites, Duffy says. VideoElephant grew out of that; the site, in fact, has 500 of O’Shaughnessy’s videos on the menu.

VideoElephant has $1 million in start-up funding from ACT Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland. Duffy says, “New York City would be the number one place for us to be in the immediate future” and predicts the company will open up an office in the city next year.  

pj@mediapost.com