SAN MATEO, Calif., July 30, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Virage, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRGE), a leading provider of video and rich media communication software, today announced the next generation of VS Publishing(tm), the industry's first software product for automated packaging, distribution and publishing of video and rich media content to the Internet and corporate Intranets. Leveraging its wealth of experience with customers like C-SPAN, Discovery Networks, PBS and NASCAR.com, Virage developed VS Publishing to enable small production teams to deliver large volumes of content to diverse audiences. The new software is designed to support new business opportunities involving advertising, subscription services and content syndication.
"Content owners are required to do more with less if they're going to succeed in the market today," said Dave Girouard, senior vice president of Marketing and Strategy at Virage. "With VS Publishing, we're providing a solution that allows companies with valuable, branded content to pursue new business opportunities with their content in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Because VS Publishing supports integrated business rules, we've also empowered content owners to decide exactly where and how their content is used."
"Even as some media giants re-think their commitment to the Internet, their need to experiment with digital media and next-generation distribution models remains as crucial as ever," said Steven Vonder Haar, digital media analyst with Interactive Media Strategies. "In today's market environment, media companies need to extend their brands and invest in new types of digital distribution at a reasonable cost. Tools like those developed by Virage give corporate users and content providers a way to deliver video programming online without a huge upfront investment."
VS Publishing manages the entire workflow including the acquisition and creation of digital assets, delivery of finished content to multiple destinations, and detailed tracking and reporting of content usage. The software supports a variety of customizable processes that automate the most time intensive publishing tasks, greatly reducing the time-to-web. With built-in support for content packaging, content categorization, dynamic ad insertion, and automated distribution, VS Publishing delivers several key benefits:
-- More targeted and sophisticated rich media advertising and
branding campaigns
-- Automated packaging and delivery of content to multiple
destinations
-- Easy implementation and enforcement of customized business rules
-- Improved time-to-web and quality of content
-- Closed-loop feedback thru detailed tracking and reporting
-- Secure, centralized management of all rich media assets
-- Virtually instant turnaround against new business opportunities
Rob Adams, product manager at Bell Globemedia Interactive in Canada, said, "Virage understands the needs of media & entertainment companies. VS Publishing will allow content owners to multipurpose their content across television and the Internet with significant cost savings. This will impact the bottom line for any media company publishing content to the Internet, and I applaud Virage for building an end-to-end solution with these benefits."
With dynamic ad insertion, VS Publishing enables advertisers to quickly implement targeted video-centric ad campaigns around specific content categories. Out of the box, the new software will schedule, serve and report on ads delivered with streaming content. Organizations can also extend their brand and realize incremental revenue by taking advantage of VS Publishing's syndication capabilities. By combining features such as automated publishing, business rules management, and XML (extensible markup language) export, VS Publishing allows content owners to quickly set-up and manage on going cross-promotion or syndication opportunities, as well as deliver content to subscription-based services such as RealOne(tm) from RealNetworks.
VS Publishing, built upon the company's award-winning rich media application platform, offers an easy-to-use, web-based interface for selecting, building and posting content highlights from an archive or recently broadcast event to any part of a website, in a matter of minutes. Corporations can also develop video rich information portals with VS Publishing, and package and dynamically publish content for customers, employees or partners to address a range of business needs, such as corporate communications, marketing promotion and training.
Also announced today, VS Publishing is now available on the Oracle9i platform for added scalability and reliability (see "Virage Rich Media Applications Now Available On Oracle9i Database" press release). VS Publishing is available immediately as licensed software or as a hosted Virage service.
About Virage
Established in 1995, Virage is a leading provider of video and rich media communication software. Virage builds integrated rich media business solutions for corporations, media & entertainment companies, universities and government agencies worldwide. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Virage (www.virage.com) has offices throughout the United States and Europe.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements about the products and services of Virage, as that term is used in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are denoted by such words as "will allow," "will impact," "will schedule, serve and report" and similar terms and phrases. These types of statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. In addition, our forward-looking statements should be considered in the context of other risk factors discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to our annual report on Form 10-K and 10-Q filings, available online at http://www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to the company on the date hereof, and the company assumes no obligation to update such statements.
Virage and VideoLogger are registered trademarks. The Virage logo, SmartEncode, Virage Solution Server, VS Webcasting, VS Learning, VS Publishing and VS Production are trademarks of Virage, Inc. Other company product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others, and are hereby acknowledged. The determination of when VS Publishing 2.0 will be made available for general distribution, if ever, remains at the sole discretion of Virage, Inc.