Kaltura Wins Coveted TechCrunch40 People's Choice Award With the Unveiling of Its Online Group-Video-Making Platform

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - September 20, 2007) - Kaltura, Inc., a pioneer in Collaborative Media, announced today the launch of its revolutionary platform for online group-video-making. Kaltura allows groups of users to do with video, audio, and animation what wiki platforms enable them to do with text. The Kaltura.com portal enables users of all social networks and blogs to create and promote collaborative videos using widgets. Websites which license and integrate Kaltura's technology empower their users with a customized group-video-making platform. The site www.kaltura.com is fully available today.

Kaltura Wins TechCrunch40 People's Choice Presentation

Kaltura was selected as the people's choice out of the 99 finalist companies that were chosen to showcase their products at this year's TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco. There were over 700 applicants from 26 different countries competing for a spot in TechCrunch40, the leading conference in the Web 2.0 space. With the announcement of the people's choice nomination, Kaltura was invited to deliver the conference's final product presentation.

"We are thrilled to have received such an honor from our peers and industry experts," said Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO of Kaltura. "We look forward to providing any groups of users on any website an easy and fun way to collaborate with each other and create together."

Taking Peer Production and Online Video to the Next Level

The concepts of peer production and rich media are at the forefront of today's digital world. Various wiki projects and users' massive participation in peer produced projects have revealed users' inclination to collaborate using plain text. Simultaneously, the success of user-generated video sharing sites has demonstrated users' growing interest to produce and to share rich media. Today there is a need and an opportunity to unleash the synergetic potential of both these trends by allowing groups of online users to collaborate and create rich media content together.

Enter Kaltura

At Kaltura.com users start a group project with friends and like-minded people. They pick a look for their Kaltura page, invite people to contribute all forms of rich-media content -- video, audio, pictures, slides etc. -- and edit the contributions together using the Kaltura multi-user rich-media editor. The free site also includes full permissions and versioning functions that protect users' privacy and streamline the production. The collaborative group-created results -- short videos, slideshows, music clips, or group video greetings -- can be viewed on Kaltura.com, downloaded for later use, or easily syndicated and embedded on any website as a widget.

Typical Use Cases

Creating a Kaltura is a great way to document everyday group events, to socialize with peers, to strengthen ties of an online or offline group, to meet and interact with exciting people who share similar interests, and to tap into the wisdom, resources, and creativity of the crowd. Musicians, fans, filmmakers, travelers, students, activists, regular family members and friends come to Kaltura.com to create together what they would not do alone -- like a video of a group event or trip, fan scrapbook, video year book, collaborative music clip, short film or documentary, activist call for action, or a group video greeting card.

Empowering Other Websites and Social Network Pages

Users of social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo can increase their viral engagement by starting a group video at Kaltura.com and embedding a widget on their page with the collaborative result.

Kaltura also licenses its collaborative platform to well known brands, operators of social networks and user generated content sites, and other websites. These partners can integrate Kaltura's full suite of capabilities into their own sites with a customized user interface, graphics, and interoperability with their proprietary databases, protocols, and rules. Their users will consequently be able to create together group videos and multimedia projects that cater to their specific needs in the 'comfort' of their current place of gathering.

For example, greeting card sites can enable the creation of group video greetings, travel sites can enable the creation of group travel logs, and genealogy sites can enable the creation of family generated videos. Almost any website can enjoy the benefits of group video making as a way to enhance usability, increase time spent on the site, boost advertisement revenues, and increase viewers' engagement with the site and with each other.

Kaltura's platform is available to these partners as a hosted solution, and through an elaborate Software Development Kit. Kaltura's team works with partners in order to integrate and customize the technology, and provides them with the required training and support.

About Kaltura

Kaltura is a New York-based pioneer in Collaborative Media, allowing groups of users to create rich-media projects together using video, audio, and animation, similarly to what wiki platforms enable with text. Kaltura's revolutionary concept of group-video-making enables existing affinity groups to 'get creative together.' It provides the incentive and opportunity for people to 'lean forward' and create rich-media with friends and like-minded people. Kaltura's technology is implemented in the kaltura.com portal, where group-video-making is available to all for free, and is also licensed to other websites, social networks, and brands for their customized and integrated use. Founded in 2006, Kaltura's management and advisory team includes top notch advertising, marketing, and media executives as well as seasoned technology entrepreneurs, including co-founders of ICQ, Cyota, and Destinator Technologies. The Company is backed by Avalon Ventures, a San Diego-based venture capital fund focused on wireless technology, life science, and Web 2.0. For more information visit http://www.kaltura.com or visit the Kaltura blog at http://www.kaltura.com/blog/.

Contact Information: For more information: Lisa Bennett Kaltura (212) 981-3965