Centennial, Colorado-Based, LSN, Acquired by IPTV Un-Television Network, http://www.jack9.com/
Centennial, CO - LSN, a developer of customized Web TV, content management, and streaming delivery tools announces today that they have completed a buyout bid from Jack 9 Entertainment. The deal sees the LSN staff takeover the technical operations of Jack 9 Entertainment's IPTV Network which airs on http://www.jack9.com/.
LSN developed a pre-YouTube video upload system called Tobee.biz, but soon realized the concept was ahead of the online video market. CEO, Eric Darst, decided to branch out the proprietary program in an effort to help print media create advertising inventory online using video properties. That concept saw the first period of growth for LSN as they secured clients such as the DenverPost.com and the PittsburghPostGazette.com.
LSN built an interactive dining guide for www.DenverPost.com/food that allowed local restaurants to be featured online in a video format. The video restaurant reviews air online and have the ability to run paid pre-roll commercials while also including maps, menus and user reviews of the restaurants being featured.
"Working with the print media to enable social online video capabilities that convened community while generating revenue was our silver bullet we thought," says Darst. "Because Tobee.biz was in its infancy stage and no one was sure how to monetize eyeballs on the Internet, we focused our efforts on working with newspapers and magazines."
Securing DenverPost.com lead to new business with PittsburghPostGazette.com, but, the jobs weren't rolling in as expected.
"It was like trying to teach a new language. Bringing video into the equation for print media proved difficult. Both the print media advertising models and client expectations were steeped in tradition," says Darst. "We believed in the ultimate value of online video and persevered by doing sophisticated web development work and broadcast quality video production."
The LSN team continued with work in a variety of business models in an effort to keep the company at the forefront of web based video technology. They knew that online video content would play a huge part of the online experience, but weren't sure how the business model would unfold.
As YouTube grew in popularity, LSN felt as if they may be missing the bus. Darst says that Tobee.biz was far more robust than YouTube, but that it didn't capitalize enough on the end-user experience and Web 2.0 capabilities. Plus, unlike the current YouTube model, Darst was looking to generate revenue from their content.
"The Youtube purchase by Google actually ended up re-energized our efforts for online video. We felt that online video had finally been drawn to the front," says Darst.
Luckily for LSN, YouTube wasn't the only online video provider and Google wasn't the only company looking to take advantage of it. Quietly, a small company based in Las Vegas at the time was cultivating a lifestyle brand called Jack 9 Entertainment.
"We had been building a brand around the poker explosion, developing a clothing line and producing video content for poker players," says Jack 9 CEO, Richard Granville. "As the Jack 9 brand grew I knew that the content my community was craving wasn't entirely fit for network television, or even cable."
Granville realized that the male demographic of 18-34 was being vastly underserved in terms of television. He points out that publications like STUFF Magazine were so successful because they didn't have the restraints of television, but they still managed to cultivate a large following of devoted consumers that advertisers knew wanted to be on the cutting edge of new products and that were very community oriented.
"Jack 9 began to build on its video library by adding extreme sports action that you couldn't see on television- gnarly crashes, epic mountain bike challenges, and mixed martial arts that went beyond the TV-safe, UFC," says Granville. "As our library and audience grew, we knew we needed to take the next step in developing our IPTV to be more navigable, have more bandwidth, and incorporate state-of-the-art metrics and analytics as advertisers were starting to seek us out."
Jack 9 Entertainment saw a hugely undervalued company in LSN. They had developed a skin-based online video solution that provided advanced metrics and gave advertisers a contextual understanding of how the viewers were interacting with the message.
"I knew I had to get involved with these guys," says Granville.
LSN knew that they had a powerful product as well, and they recognized the real marketing and promotions strength that Granville's company had - perfect synergy. . In the end, Jack 9 fully acquired LSN and moved their tech offices to Centennial to be headed up by LSN founder and CEO, Eric Darst. Jack 9 Entertainment also maintains its corporate headquarters in Orange County California.
Currently Jack 9 is receiving over 1,000,000 loads per day 500,000 unique visits per day, 200,000 returns and the average viewer spends between 5-20 minutes on the site. Eric Darst and his Centennial-based staff have launched version 2.0 of the website and is readying version 3.0 which will incorporate Web 2.0 capabilities. In addition, they have developed a solution to one of the advertising industries biggest questions - What is the working broadcast solution for online advertisements?
Most ad agencies still believe that message is conveyed best in the traditional :30 second spot and are still producing the bulk of their content in this format. The problem is that most viewers aren't going to stick around to watch a 3-4 minute mash-up or homegrown clip onlinr if they are forced to endure a :30 second spot in front of every one.
Eric Darst and the Jack 9 team credit one of their largest breakthroughs as being the achievement in delivering contextual results to advertisers by syndicating the :30 second commercial throughout pre, mid and post rolls. "The traditional video spot just begs the viewer to click away," says Darst. "We encourage the advertising community to develop impacting and engaging short spots that deliver a real punch."
This model is currently proving to be a huge success with both advertisers and viewers. Jack9 is the only IPTV network that follows this guideline.
"Our numbers are growing everyday. The feedback from our viewers and our advertisers is that the current model developed by Eric's team is not only making for a great viewing experience, but is furthering the relationship between the viewer and the advertisers in a positive way," says Granville. "The deal with LSN has been very beneficial to our business model. We are just happy we found them first."
