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Virool (YC S12) Brings Viral Video Views to the Cash Carrying Masses (pandodaily.com)
47 points by adebelov on Aug 15, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments



As long as the content is authentic and high quality it seems like a win for marketers, publishers, and consumers. However, if the videos end up just being straight up commercials that the user has to sit through it's going super annoying. Is Virool vetting the quality of the content? What prevents marketers from just using commercials?

Concerns aside, I love the idea. Organic content distribution is super hard. For every video that goes viral, hundreds of thousands of videos of similar quality flop. Even ad agencies struggle with getting distribution for content, so this seems like a really useful tool that I would have loved to have had when I was working in the interactive agency world.


Wow, tried this out on a noodle pulling video I filmed in 2006 that went semi-viral over time ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rfu1ZHiMP8 ). In 3 mins, my campaign had 258 impressions and 112 views for a conversion rate of 43.41%. Exhausted my bid/cost per day at 12 cents/$10 a day using the coupon.


Can someone describe better (than pando) how this is different than a traditional video advertising platform?

If I am reading correctly, Virool is trying to tie into existing, engaged user bases and publishing there? Are there any requirements for becoming a publisher?


simply put. We don't do pre-rolls (traditional online video advertising).

Instead, we do in-app video advertising on Facebook and Mobile. So next time you play Farmville, you might see our videos when the game loads, in-between levels or in exchange for virtual currency.


As I understand it there are no requirements to becoming a publisher. Unless you are faking traffic or have questionable content (i.e. porn), as long as you hook into the API you are ready to go. Some of the publishers we talked to are making more money through Virool than any other ad product they have tried.


Hot damn.

I love the in-context video ads instead of pre-rolls, so this could be a great solution for our needs.


Exactly. Pre-rolls and banners suck (since they are coming from traditional newspapers/web page/TV era), so we are building video ad network for developers so they can plug to our APIs and grab our videos to place them in their APPs(streams etc), facebook apps, mobile etc the way they want it.

You can check our API here: http://www.virool.com/blog/index.php/developers/


Thanks for upvotes! Here is HN special - use coupon code 'pando2012' for $50 credit. Good for the first 50 claims.


Thanks! The coupon code worked.


How would you handle the case of longer videos, eg musicians who want to promote a new track?


Great service! One of the easiest to signup and start. I started using it just today. Be careful with keywords and locations, or else your entire $10 campaign will take only a few minutes to exhaust.


Be careful with your targeting and keywords - since many publishers use our real-time API they can deliver your campaigns very quickly. Shoot me email and I can look into your account and give you some tips and $10 credit.


We exhausted our $50 credit in minutes so probably doing something wrong - any tips appreciated :)

Very cool idea by the way! Congrats on the traction...


Virool is freaking AWESOME! Use it if you have a video and want your target audience to see it asap :)


As an investor we are proud to be partnering with the Virool Team.

We tested out the product extensively and were about to get 5,364 views, 29 likes, and 10 comments. Check these guys out!




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