Innovative service e-mails promo videos to TV buyers.

The logical evolution for an innovative professional TV trade publication such as VideoAge is to offer readers and advertisers a video service sent directly to their computer screens: Introducing the industry's first streaming media promo videos sent via e-mail. Once an e-mail is opened, the recipient can immediately click on a freeze-frame video image and instantly access the stream. There's no download waiting time.

With this latest addition, VideoAge is not only yet again pioneering a new service, but completing the circle, by offering to the international TV industry monthlies, dailies, online services (daily and weekly newsletters), Web content and now, streaming videos--basically becoming a one-stop shop for all.

This promo video service is a reminder of when, 25 years ago, VideoAge pioneered dailies at TV trade shows. At that time, advertisers were mostly accustomed to monthly publications, and had to adapt their marketing strategies to take advantage of a daily editorial vehicle's impact.

Today, producers, program distributors and service providers are asked by VideoAge to once again retool their marketing and advertising strategies to take advantage of the impact of an audiovisual presentation sent directly to TV industry executives.

There are several kinds of video promos, which serve various purposes: Promos can introduce a new show or service, present a company, invite executives to a market booth or party, provide a brief tour of studios or facilities, make an appeal and induce a direct sale, among other things.

VideoAge's streaming promotional videos were introduced last February with a mailing to a preliminary database of key international TV executives. A more refined version was sent last month and, by May 2007, the plan is to reach 8,000 TV executives worldwide from all sectors: broadcast, cable, satellite, DVD, theatrical, production and distribution.

After the promo videos are e-mailed, they'll be posted on VideoAge's website for a full month. Visitors can choose their preferred broadband speed (from dial-up to optical fiber) for best resolution and screen size. In addition, viewers have the opportunity to mail video clips to friends and associates, thus increasing the promos' reach and visibility.

Digital Age Solutions (DAS), a multimedia company based in New Jersey, is providing the streaming service that uses top-of-the-line technology and equipment assuring high-video quality and secure e-mail postings.

DAS brings together all of the essential components of rich media delivery over the Internet. DAS service offerings have been engineered and built with the expressed purpose of providing the best set of high-performance scalable solutions for the delivery of digital media.

According to Michael Khrakovsky, DAS managing director: "Far more than just another content delivery network, DAS has developed a comprehensive series of services and solutions for content owners and content distributors that allow their end-users gain access to video and audio content via IP-based networks while protecting the property rights of content owners and solving the storage and delivery requirements of distributors in industries where brand recognition is essential."

Indeed, innovation pays off, both in the short and long run. In addition to its dailies, VideoAge was the first to adopt the moniker: "The Business Journal," first to introduce Spanish-language and French-language TV trade publications (VideoEra and VideoPro, respectively, in 1986 and '88), first to move into IPTV technology, and now first in the publishing sector to offer advertisers a way to reach TV program buyers worldwide, via the Internet, with their promotional videos.