AtomShockwave Launches Video Aggregator

Internet film and game firm AtomShockwave today is expected to launch AddictingClips.com, a clearinghouse of links to popular video content, including comedic shorts, consumer creations, and clever commercials.

The site, which is modeled after online game aggregator AddictingGames.com, a recent AtomShockwave acquisition, contains more than a thousand links to video content sites.

Scott Roesch, general manager and vice president of Atom Films, described the site as "the world's greatest repository" of the videos that millions of bored office workers send each other every day.

At launch, Unilever's Axe body spray is sponsoring the site. Axe will have a full takeover of all the ad units on the site, and two Axe ads are linked to in the site's video library.

Otherwise, the site's ad inventory is relatively spare--box ads and a leaderboard, Roesch said. "Part of the appeal of these sites is that they have a grassroots noncorporate look and feel, and we didn't want to mess that up with a lot of ads," he said.

The Axe sponsorship closes in early January, after which a regular cycle of advertisers begins. A spokeswoman for AtomShockwave said that the brands that have expressed early interest largely target the youth market--clients from the entertainment, soft drink, and snack food industries--many of whom already advertise on AtomFilms.

Currently, the site hosts no content of its own, but Roesch said that AtomShockwave intends to solicit user-created clips that will be hosted on the site. The company--whose flagship properties are AtomFilms and Shockwave, an online games site--is considering selling video ad inventory against the content, but no decision has been finalized. "We're going to look long and hard for the right way to do that," he said. "Those ads are a fantastic element of our businesses on AtomFilms and Shockwave, but part of the appeal of viral and consumer-generated [media] sites is the immediacy--you click and it's right there."

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