Move over, YouTube.
One day after striking a landmark deal with the social networking site, Verizon Wireless announced a similar partnership with YouTube competitor Revver, Inc. The agreement lets Verizon’s V Cast Music service customers watch user-generated video content on their handsets.
Both deals begin in December.
Under the Revver.com deal, V Cast users can watch content selected from the site in such categories as editor’s picks, viral video classics, extreme sports, laughs and animation. Verizon Wireless also gains exclusive rights to the content for one year.
“We’re working diligently to bring relevant, entertaining content to our customers,” Verizon Wireless spokesperson Jeffrey Nelson said. “We’re going to continue to build our catalogue” of video offerings.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
On Tuesday, Verizon Wireless announced a deal with Google-owned YouTube for V Cast subscribers to sample YouTube’s most popular videos on their cell phones. Under that agreement, Verizon will feature a YouTube channel and users can upload videos shot on their handsets to YouTube (PROMO Xtra November 29, 2006).
Icons for both Revver and YouTube will appear on the entertainment section of the V Cast application, Nelson said.
“It’s been an incredible time for mobile multimedia and user-generated video in the wired environment,” he said. Both Revver and YouTube “are the clear leaders in user-generated videos so [the agreements] were a natural evolution to create a marriage between a mobile service and user-generated content.”
Verizon Wireless is betting on the partnerships heating up competition in the mobile phone industry.
“Customers of other wireless companies are going to give us a look to see if this content is important to them,” Nelson said. “Accessing the user-generated videos on cell phones “is something [consumers] won’t be able to get from Cingular or Sprint or anyone else.”
Basking Ridge, NJ-based Verizon Wireless serves more than 57 million customers.
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