Magnify.net Takes Over for ChannelMe.tv

Written by Ryan Lawler

Friday, May 29. 2009 at 06:10 PM EDT Post a comment

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Magnify.net is looking to expand its addressable market with white-label and co-branded business deals, beginning with a new partnership to provide the video publishing platform for Demand Media Inc.'s ChannelMe.tv site.

Demand Media sent a notice to ChannelMe users last week notifying them that it would soon cease offering video services. Instead, the company said it was partnering with Magnify.net as the preferred platform for ChannelMe users to transition to.

As part of the partnership, Magnify.net will share revenues with Demand Media for users who sign up for accounts through the ChannelMe affiliate program. Magnify.net has also agreed to resell domains through Demand Media's eNom domain registry division.

By entering into a revenue sharing agreement, Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum says the partnership "gives the Demand guys an opportunity to continue to have a stake in the channels that get built."

Financial terms are obviously key to the deal, but both companies say that they will be collaborating outside the reseller or revenue share model on other opportunities. Jeff Eckhaus, senior vice president of eNom, says the companies are "working together on other projects that we'll be announcing sometime down the road."

For users, there is a downside as well as an upside. While Magnify will provide more features and functionality than ChannelMe had offered, the transition won't be seamless. Users will need to retrieve their videos from ChannelMe and create a new channel on Magnify before migrating to the new platform.

ChannelMe users have until July 1 to make the transition. After that point, the company will deactivate all channels on the site.

While it's not key to Magnify's business, Rosenbaum says the company could enter into more relationships like the deal it struck with Demand Media. "I think there's a real opporutnity to provide a white-label or co-branded platform," Rosenbaum says.