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Interactive Live Video Community & Next Generation Social Network LiveVideo.Com Joins Forces With Top Online Content Creator Hub Revver

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 March 2008, 15:00 CST

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- LiveVideo.com, the leading interactive live video community, a subsidiary of online entertainment network LiveUniverse, Inc. ("the Company"), has joined forces with Hollywood-based Revver.com and acquired 100% of the stock of the online video pioneer. MySpace Founder Brad Greenspan is the Founder/Chairman/CEO of parent company LiveUniverse, and will also oversee strategy and expansion initiatives for LiveVideo.com and Revver.com.

The acquisition combines the Revver.com website, which receives millions of visitors per month and hosts over 40 million monthly video streams from some of the best and brightest digital video producers, with LiveVideo.com's next generation social network, video, and live interactive offerings that are being used by over 200,000 users per day.

"Merging with LiveVideo.com and getting access to have Revver.com and its content partners promoted by LiveUniverse's network of websites is a win-win proposition for Revver and its creators," said Kevin Wells, chief executive officer of Revver. "We expand our reach and enhance our ad products, and all content creators get a stronger media platform that offers greater potential for revenue sharing opportunities."

"It's an excellent and very logical combination that overnight creates one of the most innovative online entertainment companies in Los Angeles if not the world," said LiveUniverse Chairman/CEO, Brad Greenspan. "We are eager to leverage the Revver team's experience, passion for supporting independent media and knowledge of online video while empowering site content creators with a suite of tools to launch their own live shows, broadcasts, and video chats with a global audience."

The business combination will continue to operate both LiveVideo.com and Revver.com as separate branded properties and Revver will continue to operate out of its existing location. The two websites plan to immediately combine Ad Sales and Customer Service personnel for the benefit of both properties.

How Revver was Tripped Up In Its Quest to Deliver Dollars To Content Creators

Revver.com was growing quickly in 2006 as the leader in empowering, backing, and supporting the fast growing original online video content industry. Revver.com would show an advertisement at the end of a video uploaded on Revver.com that a user would then embed on his/her web page. The User who created the video content would generate a revenue share from the display of these ads.

As 2007 began, Revver was beginning to show the growth trajectory that would have allowed the company to be profitable in the not too distant future. Suddenly in mid-January 2007, Revver's proprietary video player that allowed users to post their videos on MySpace and other social networks, stopped working on MySpace. To the average user, it appeared as if Revver's video embed was broken. Many users never understood what happened and simply thought Revver's product was poorly designed and most migrated over to services like YouTube. A smaller group of original content creator pioneers and Revver users realized the truth: That MySpace had become a predator aggressively blocking and censoring any web service it deemed competitive or that it saw generating revenue from users of the MySpace service. A portion of the Revver users realized what was being lost that day: The ability in exchange for their hard work and creativity to recognize a small but perhaps emotionally significant sliver of revenue from all of their friends, family, and fans that wanted to watch, enjoy, and spread the word to others.

This small group of users rallied a furious PR campaign as best they could, led by content pioneers such as Ask A Ninja, who posted blogs and tried to rally users to complain to MySpace to stop blocking Revver. But MySpace ignored the pleas from these injured content creators and to this day continues to block the Revver Video platform from working on MySpace.

MySpace's strategy when it decides to attempt to destroy a small- to medium-sized company is launching a predatory block/censor of anything that will allow users of MySpace to 'spread the word'. MySpace has blocked scores of other websites that are competitive including the shocking incident of blocking Photobucket embed in 2007 as a flexing of MySpace muscle so that other potential buyers walked away and allowed MySpace to buy Photobucket at a much reduced price with no competition. Even MySpace Founder Brad Greenspan had his video site Vidilife.com blocked by MySpace. The Vidilife.com site continues to be blocked today.

The content creators were the biggest victims from MySpace's actions because MySpace's anti-competitive/predatory treatment prevented them from generating meaningful advertising revenue for well over a year and counting.

About LiveVideo.com

LiveVideo.com is Brad Greenspan's (who started and launched MySpace in August 2003) latest project and is visited by over 200,000 users daily.

About LiveUniverse

LiveUniverse is one of the world's largest online entertainment networks, led by Brad Greenspan, the founder of MySpace. LiveUniverse operates several successful and popular websites across three core verticals: Video, Social Networking & Music. The LiveUniverse network is visited and reaches over 40 million unique visitors per month and over 400 million page views.

About Revver

Revver is the first video sharing service powered by advertising. Revver allows anyone to share videos across the Internet, as well as through broadcast and mobile distribution channels and rewards them with a percentage of the advertising revenue generated. Revver also upholds content owners' rights by not accepting copyright-infringing content, and offers an open API that allows producers to build their own video-sharing websites.

Contacts: Financial Relations Board Saskia Sidenfaden Kathy Price (212) 827-3771 (213) 486-6547 ssidenfaden@frbir.com kprice@frbir.com

LiveVideo.com

CONTACT: Saskia Sidenfaden, +1-212-827-3771, ssidenfaden@frbir.com, orKathy Price, +1-213-486-6547, kprice@frbir.com, both of Financial RelationsBoard for LiveVideo.com

Web site: http://www.livevideo.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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