Open Innovation Awards: Kaltura

Since last week I started to cover the “Open Innovation Awards” winners, assigned at the  Open World Forum 2009.

Let’s have now a closer look at Kaltura, the open source video platform for online video management, now powering over 32800 different sites.

Going open Kaltura is revolutionizing the video industry, making possible for WordPress users, Drupal users and soon also for Wikipedia users. But it’s not just about the code. Kaltura is making available an open source “whole product”, allowing third parties to easily integrate its platform as well as creating new video applications. It is really about fostering (video) innovation.

Kaltura.org and Kaltura.com differences are clear: Kaltura.com is your place if you want online video solutions plus additional related services (hosting and streaming, content syndication, video SEO, ad-serving, aggregation of other 3rd party services, custom work, support level agreements, maintenance and support packages).

Kaltura got a first round from Avalon ventures, and the second round was lead by 406 ventures with existing investor, and in less than two years is becoming the most promising technology allowing users to interact and collaborate in rich-media.

Kaltura is also promoting a global ‘open video’ movement, called the Open Video Alliance, showing a deep understanding of the importance to work hard on fostering ecosystems. The license of choice is, as it must be, the AGPL.

Kaltura’s vision is to be for video what Firefox is to browsers, or WordPress is to publishing, but my guess is that they are probably going to be what Twitter is to texting.