VentureBeat

Next New Networks, the company that publishes thematic channels of video online, including Barely Political (which features Obama-cheering Obama Girl), has raised more capital to keep expanding.

It has taken $15 million more from Velocity Interactive and Goldman Sachs, we’ve just learned. This adds to the $8 million it raised a year ago (see our coverage).

The company now has 12 main channels in its network, with 33 million video views in February, a pace that suggests strong growth from last year, when the site had more than 100 million video views.

We reached a company representative, and she would not comment on how the company’s revenue is coming along. Getting advertisers to pay good money for online video has proven tougher than some have expected, in part because advertisements are disruptive, regardless where they’re placed within a video. However, Next New is pursuing a strategy of distributing its videos as extensively as possible, for example today officially announcing a deal to place its video channels in sidebars along AOL-owned sites. Next New did say it has signed some ad deals in the fourth quarter last year, specifically around its car channel.

Velocity, the new firm formed by former AOL CEO Jon Miller and former News Corp. executive Ross Levinsohn, has focused heavily on video investments. Velocity has backed Motricity (see our coverage), which distributes mobile applications. The firm has also invested in Generate (our coverage) and BroadBand Enterprises (our coverage).

Joining Goldman and Velocity in the round are previous Next New Network investors Bob Pittman, Saban Media Group and Spark Capital.

Next New Networks, a new company launching targeted online TV channels, has acquired BarelyPolitical.com, creator of the viral video show, Obama Girl.

The amount was undisclosed, but this is NNN’s way of entering the political comedy show business at a time when the coming U.S. elections is creating a renewed interest in politics. The political news site, Huffington Post, also recently raised capital on the thinking that the elections will widen its appeal.

BarelyPolitical was founded four months ago by Ben Relles, and will focus on producing political comedy shows on NNN, with its videobloggers and correspondents contributing content.

NNN raised $8 million to launch niche video sites across a number of genres. It’s obviously concluded that buying its way into to good content is a faster way to go. While Obama Girl’s video was reportedly viewed more than 100 million times, NNN’s strategy is always risky because there’s no way to tell how popular such shows will remain.

More context about the politics-related video scene on NewTeeVee.

This year has become the “show-me” year. Internet start-ups showing no traction are getting shut down, or trimmed — abandoned by once wide-eyed investors.

The Web 2.0 bubble is bursting, but VentureBeat agrees with others that this is more like an “oozing.” New, innovative companies will continue to get funding from VCs, but with more caution. Investments amounts in Web 2.0, while booming, are so far nowhere near the absurd levels seen during the 1999-2000 period (see the Hornik-Dagres debate about this here), so the wreckage won’t cause as much pain. Back in 2000, trillions of dollars of market value were lost, because the entire U.S. economy had gotten sucked up into it. This time, not so.

Still, some pain there is.

Peerflix, the DVD-swapping company, is the latest company to lay off employees, VentureBeat has learned. The Menlo Park, Calif. company has shut its Canadian office, cutting an undisclosed number of workers, founder Billy McNair confirmed. We heard the company may have cut a quarter of its workfroce, but McNair wouldn’t provide any details. These appear to be the first layoffs hitting the “swapping platform” sector. See our piece last year about Peerflix, where McNair’s optimism stands in stark contrast to today. This company’s business model has been controversial from the start, as you’ll see from the comments.

In other developments:

FilmLoop close to death — FilmLoop, of Palo Alto, Calif., has reportedly laid off most of its staff of 30 employees after failing to find a buyer. The company raised $7 million in venture capital just eight months ago, from ComVentures. Co-founder Prescott Lee and a few others remain. FilmLoop let users create photo slide shows on websites, something that several other players let you do — from Slide, to Rockyou and Photobucket. Note our skepticism back when it raised its cash. It was very late to the game.

Jobster confirms layoffs — Rumors began last year. Jobster confirms 60 people, or 41 percent of its worforce, have been cut (its entire sales and support staff).

…meanwhile, consolidation in social networking continues — The German Facebook clone, StudiVZ has been sold for a reported 85 million Euros (less than the earlier reports suggested), to Holtzbrick Verlag, a German publishing giant that had invested earlier in StudiVZ.

…and the new ideas don’t seem that compelling — Decentral.tv, the San Rafael, Calif. start-up raised $2.3 million several months ago to launch “interactive broadcast broadband communities,” which we called vague at the time, but said we’d wait to see. Now it is apparently launching Kyte.tv, which offers video channels you can watch online or on mobile phones. We could be wrong (we’re relying on other accounts), but it doesn’t seem to push things forward. This follows plans by Old Media folks to launch Next New Networks, the latest niche video company — having raised $8 million — with nothing yet to show. Are they getting religion too late, or can they leverage their network to launch something compelling anyway? Time will tell. But companies that raise cash first, before launching and getting users, are rarely successes — though there are exceptions.

Similar thoughts, too for Twistage, based in San Francisco and New York, yet another start-up offering companies a way to use video on their own sites. It has raised under $1 million in angel funding, and moved into the Looksmart building in SF, reports Liz Gannes. Backers are Computer Associates chairman Lewis Ranieri and Jerry Colonna, formerly of Flatiron Partners. Several other companies are doing this, including Brightcove, Reality Digital (see our post here), vSocial and GridNetworks. On the hopeful side, thousands of companies will want to incorporate video into their sites in sophisticated ways, but on the downside, the technology is quickly becoming a commodity.

Othes putting off VC plans — Some companies are giving up looking for cash, in part because many VCs are getting skeptical. One very well known Web 2.0 investor tells VentureBeat he’s made his last Web 2.0 investment, though he didn’t want his name disclosed. One valley-based company Mojeo, originally told VentureBeat it would look to raise VC money to bolster its service to let people find out more local information on their mobile phones — by sharing their location with companies Yahoo, Google and Upcoming. Co-founder Mike Prince told VentureBeat that he and co-founder Dave Sutter have instead returned their focus to their day jobs, and passing on getting cash for now — though will continue to push Mojeo forward.

Next New Networks is the latest company to launch a niche content strategy — this time, online TV sites tailored to specific themes.

The New York company has received $8 million in a first round of funding from Spark Capital, an East Coast venture capital firm focused on media companies.

The logic is clear. Advertisers like niche sites. Nothing really new here, so this investment is not very surprising. The only question is, why does it need $8 million?

Next New Network is so early, that it has nothing really to show yet. Co-founders Fred Seibert and Emil Rensing started Frederator and VOD Cars, respectively, but those are nascent sites that will change significantly soon, the company tells us. Other co-founders include Herb Scannell, who is chief executive, Jed Simmons and Tim Shey. Scannell is former vice chairman of MTV Networks and president of Nickelodeon. The others are all experienced media execs too.

The business model is advertising tailored to the niche of the particular video site’s audience. Each show will run between three and 12 minutes long. It is similar to Revision3, the San Francisco company started by Digg co-founders Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose (which we wrote about here). That company raised only $1 million.