Share Your Favorite TV Moments (Legally) With Whipclip

By Adam Flomenbaum 

new-whipclip-app-iconRe/code recently reported that Whipclip – a mobile app company founded by former Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt – raised $20 million at a $100 million valuation. The app will allow consumers to share favorite TV clips legally.

Rosenblatt got the idea for Whipclip while watching Richard Sherman’s comments following the Seattle Seahawks’ victory against the San Francisco 49ers in the 2013 NFC Championship. According to Re/code:

Rosenblatt wanted to get a clip of the diatribe to his kids, but found it nearly impossible to do so except via sending links to stolen clips on YouTube.

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“I did what everyone does and emailed, ‘Check this out it’s at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mlnm3rfnww, but it’s long so fast forward to 11 seconds and you don’t need to watch past 35 seconds,’” said Rosenblatt, who had been consulting for Raine since he left Demand.

The fundraising announcement comes along with a number of content deals with media companies. For media companies, the benefit is being able to drive viewers back to their sites (whereas they are unable to do so on illegally shared content) and analytics tools to measure what’s being shared. Writes Kara Swisher:

Although initially not a consumer play, Whipclip’s main focus now is recruiting these content owners to provide their TV shows for WhipClip’s consumer application in return offering video streaming, editing, distribution and analytics tools. Once shared — via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr, email and SMS — the clips direct traffic back to the content providers’ sites.

Of course, the success or failure of services like Whipclip depends on how much popular content it can convince media companies to share. For its beta launch, it has signed up a smattering of shows from ABC, CBS and A&E Networks, which is still clearly not enough to go really viral.

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