Online Video Vultures Picking at Maven Customers

Written by Ryan Lawler

Wednesday, July 1. 2009 at 05:40 PM EDT 3 comments

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With the news that Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) would cease operations of Maven Networks, a couple of online video firms are making their pitch to customers of the soon-to-be-defunct video distribution company.

VMIX Media Inc. and Delve Networks have both publicly launched programs to migrate Maven customers to their own video management platforms, offering sweetheart deals to those who might be left in the cold by Yahoo's decision to close down the company.

In a press release issued today, VMIX said it would help Maven customers migrate to the VMIX platform "without any transfer or setup fees" -- and it even set up a helpful Web page disenfranchised Maven customers can use to sign up.

For Delve, the offer isn't quite as straightforward. As part of its "bailout program" for Maven customers, the company offers to "do a complimentary assessment of their video assets to assess the effort to transition to a new platform."

Once it's done assessing its assessment of a Maven customer's video assets, Delve says it will "waive the re-encoding and transition fees and [Ed. note: 'the customer,' we're assuming] will only start paying once the transition is complete and is live on the Internet."

That is, "unless there are exceptional circumstances." [Ed. note: What those exceptional circumstances are, we'd LOVE to know!]

While this is the first pitch to dead -- or dying -- competitors from VMIX (that we know of), Delve does this sort of thing all the time, it seems. The company made a similar pitch to Brightcove Network customers when that company shut down its consumer service, and also went after EyeSpot customers when it was shut down.