After two years of winding down a legacy CMS company and ramping up another, Field59 officially took off. We brought in new, multi-year video contracts for a 72% increase in revenue over 2015. We’re still bootstrapping our business, and even turned down an opportunity that wasn’t right for us. One thing that remains the same, however, is our mission is to empower our customer partners to reach their business goals through online video. Our first priority has always been to value their rights as video content owners and publishers.
Field59 offers a start-to-finish video solution for media companies. These companies are primarily television and radio broadcasters, newspapers, and educational organizations – anyone that produces premium video content online. From live stream production, to video library management, to online delivery, the Field59 Video Platform offers tools for video publishing and distribution to the web and over-the-top devices, such as ROKU, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV. We’ve built an easy-to-use video system that’s always on, 24/7, for live stream and pre-recorded content, so audiences can tune in, anytime, anywhere.
This system, along with our automated syndication, smart playlist technology, customizable video players, and top-notch customer support, is what we offer, and we look forward to bringing new innovative solutions to our customer partners in 2017.
Reflecting on the past year, we’re grateful for the opportunities, partnerships, and customers that we’ve had the pleasure of working with in 2016. We welcomed five Calkins newspapers, eight Casa Grande Valley newspapers, 24 CNHI newspapers, the broadcasting ABC affiliate WTXL ABC 27, Bloomington Herald-Times’ Hoosier Sports Report (Indiana University sports) and Edutopia.
We also strengthened our business partnerships with Forscene in London, who offers live-feed capture and professional video editing software, and Calkins Digital, a mobile and over-the-top video app developer. Our partnerships with these two companies allow us to provide time-saving, efficient, and intuitive workflows for a complete video publishing and delivering solution, with the goal of keeping our customers relevant and competitive in the age of video streaming.
Our customers have always had an easy way to add their videos to any website. But now, we offer API integration into any CMS. TownNews.com’s BLOX CMS integrated Field59 directly into their CMS this year, and our joint customers have seen a definitive workflow improvement in publishing their news.
But what has been really exciting was watching the Bloomington Herald-Times produce the Hoosier Sports Report, bringing their local Indiana University sports coverage to the next level. With constantly updated videos of the latest sports news, discussion, and personalities, Field59 powers the delivery of their sports video to the web, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV devices.
We’re also extremely proud to have begun working with Edutopia, a non-profit resource for educators and parents created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Field59 delivers Edutopia’s premium video content to new audiences via over-the-top devices. These ROKU, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV apps provide a big-screen experience in homes and classrooms, allowing viewers to discover best practices in education from these original and curated content channels.
Earlier this year, Field59 was one of a dozen companies selected to exhibit in the “Innovation Lounge” at the Digital Entertainment World Expo in Los Angeles. The DEW Expo is an annual gathering of leading media and technology companies in the entertainment industry. Closer to home, Field59 has been heavily involved in the Madison community, producing weekly live and recorded video of presentations by Madison-area entrepreneurs for 1 Million Cups Madison; producing and managing 100Live, the 100State coworking community’s live video events; live streaming the Madison Area Music Association Awards show with our Madison production partner, Hinckley Productions; live streaming the spring and fall graduating classes of startup accelerator, gener8tor; producing four live streamed and recorded events at Forward Fest, Madison’s technology and entrepreneurship festival, including: the Social Good Summit, The System, The Failures, and The Consequences on The Country, a Startup Roundtable with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and Doyenne Group & 1 Million Cups Madison’s 5x5x5 Pitch Event; and producing various live streamed and recorded events for the Madison Women in Tech meetup.
We’ve just moved into a new office at 100State in the 316 Building, and we’re thrilled continue being a part of Madison’s entrepreneurial and coworking communities. We can’t think of a better place to be.
Online video is a billion dollar market, and we’re excited to be innovating in this space. In 2017, we’ll continue to help our customer partners deliver premium online video to where their audiences are watching, whether on handheld devices or on the TVs in their living rooms.
Best wishes for a prosperous 2017!