• by Liz Tascio , February 27, 2007

The initial launch of the company that evolved into vSocial was, as co-founder and CEO Mark Sigal puts it, "spectacularly unsuccessful." Not many consumers had the broadband capability or the willingness to enter into a subscription-based agreement with a video provider.

But consumers have now entered the age of online video and the new vSocial.com, relaunched in 2005, is doing much better. In addition to providing videos, the Arizona-based company offers free and premium products that enable the creation of branded channels and the viral spread of videos. The point-and-click nature of the tools makes the products almost entirely self-service. An additional new partnership with Adify allows publishers to sell their content and collect ad revenue.

"[Publishers can] upload their content, configure the player so it has the look and feel of their corporate identity, incorporate links, and monetize it," Sigal says. "They can click a button and enable advertising to run before the video, after, or as an ad ticker." MyBrand serves small-scale publishers who want to market and spread individual videos. ProPublisher, meanwhile, is for businesses that want to create branded video channels or microsites.