British startup has already worked with Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones on video-on-demand films
British technology startup Screenburn has raised $500k (£302k) in angel investment to continue building its business helping musicians and filmmakers make money from Facebook.
The company specialises in video-on-demand (VOD) events, with fans paying to watch films or concerts on the social network. It has launched more than 200 films on Facebook, including projects for Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones.
Screenburn’s app, which launched in December 2012, sits within clients’ Facebook pages, taking payments from fans then making films available to stream for set periods of time.
Alongside the funding, the company has recruited Steve Macallister from television distributor Zodiak Rights and Howard Kiedaisch from digital cinema firm Arts Alliance Media to join its board of directors.
“There’s no question that much of the future of long form video content lies with digital streaming,” said Macallister in a statement. “Screenburn is exciting because it offers content owners an opportunity to reach out to people already engaged with a brand or a particular release online.”
Screenburn says it has a number of partnerships in place for 2014 around music, sports and television, as well as films.
“Content owners may already have thousands or even millions of fans on Facebook. The app works very well to monetise this existing audience,” said founder Tom Raffe.
“The app also takes full advantage of Facebook’s sharing functionality to find new fans and increase distribution to a nationwide or worldwide audience. This funding is a great qualification of our business model and plans for this year.”
Screenburn is one of a number of companies exploring social commerce. US startup Chirpify started out working with artists like Amanda Palmer, Green Day and Snoop Dogg to sell music and merchandise on Twitter, before expanding to Facebook and Instagram.
Another company, Gumroad, has worked with Bon Jovi and Wiz Khalifa in music, while author Nathan Barry sold more than $355k worth of books through the service in 16 months.
A more direct rival for Screenburn is Milyoni, which has worked on “social video” campaigns for clients including Universal Music Group and Hollywood firms Paramount and Lionsgate. In July 2013, it streamed a concert for Smashing Pumpkins for free, albeit to just 1,800 fans.
One challenge for all these companies when working on Facebook is the ongoing debate about “organic page reach” on the social network – the number of people who’ve Liked a band or brand who’ll actually see its posts in their news feeds.
Marketers have been complaining for some time that their organic page reach stats have been falling on Facebook, with grumbles that it’s a deliberate strategy on the social network’s part to force them to pay for advertising to reach more of their own fans.
In December 2013, Facebook responded to the criticism, admitting the trend but saying it was inevitable. “On a given day, when someone visits News Feed, there are an average of 1,5001 possible stories we can show,” claimed its blog post.
“As a result, competition for each News Feed story is increasing. Because the content in News Feed is always changing, and we’re seeing more people sharing more content, Pages will likely see changes in distribution. For many Pages, this includes a decline in organic reach.”
That presents a challenge for the clients of Screenburn and its rivals: they can make films or gigs available to stream, but ensuring all their fans know that these events are available to watch may increasingly require more spending on Facebook advertising.
Stuart Dredge – theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014