• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, October 24, 2013

No use making a long tale about this: Long Tail Video, one of major video player tech firms that increasingly is known for its JW Player, is changing its name—to JW Player.

Dave Otten, CEO for JW Player says that before getting in the door with clients, he and others had to get past explaining the company’s name. When he starts telling customers he represents JW Player, those doors open up. (Corporately, JW Player is still Long Tail Video; it’s just doing business at JWPlayer.

During the summer the old LongTail Video touted its enhancements that gives it the ability to deliver VAST compliant pre-roll ads into smartphones and tablets. That gives publishers more opportunities to monetize those hoards of viewers.

Otten said earlier this week that videos delivered via mobile devices now constitute about 30% of its total.  JW Player has also enchanced its advertising API, which gives publishers more flexibility for streaming events.

Changing its name to JW Player, Otten said, also allows the company to avoid some of the occasional “negative connotations” he said gets attached to the industry phrase long tail video itself.  “Depending on who you talk to, it can be confusing,” he said.

Another simple impediment to calling Long Tail Video, the company, by its most popular product is a more mundane story.  The domain name, JW Player.com, was  owned by a squatter. Now it’s not.

JW Player was developed by a Jaeron Wijering, who is from Holland, and whose product was discovered acquired by Long Tail in 2008. It’s ubiquitous, used by more than two million publishers, and last month handled six billion streams. JW Player’s free download is chosen about 15,000 times a day.

The company’s broader missions with mobile video, video advertising and video management solutions, including analytics, content syndication and mediation, will continue.