If you don’t know already, this thing called “video” is going to be a big trend for online publishers.
Kidding aside, video is more lucrative to online publishers than articles and slideshows are when you look at CPMs for pre-roll, mid-roll, and full video views. Still, publishers continue to find it both difficult and expensive to produce such videos.
In comes Wibbitz – an Israeli company announcing today that it has raised a $8 million Series B funding round to expand into the U.S.
Wibbitz’s technology automatically creates video content from a publisher’s text-based article content. The text-to-video platform analyzes text for tone and content, which produces a summarize script. The script is then matched with appropriate visual content and a narrative voiceover.
“High quality video content is no longer a luxury for publishers – it’s a necessity. Most video content is expensive to produce and maintain, and our technology solves this growing issue,” said Wibbitz co-founder and CEO Zohar Dayan. “Newsrooms are shrinking, video production remains costly, and there is huge demand for video ad placement. Wibbitz relieves these pressures so that editors can focus on creating quality content while executives can establish new opportunities for revenue.”