Brightcove Scores European GainsBrightcove Scores European Gains

Brightcove has scored several important European customer wins in recent days for its cloud-based online video platform. On Thursday, the U.S.-based firm announced that the U.K.'s Virgin Media will use its platform to support short-form video content.

Virgin Media, which claims about 11 million visitors a month, said it will use the Brightcove platform to publish and distribute content across its Virginmedia.com web site. "We're putting Virginmedia.com at the heart of our entertainment line-up with the recent launch of our music video on demand service and our new gaming site," said Alex Green, Virgin Media's executive director of TV and Online, in a statement.

The Brightcove offering has the advantage of enabling visitors to interact with video content via social network sharing, ratings, and other Internet community features.

Brightcove reported that it has signed up a group of Spanish customers who plan to use the Brightcove platform. They are part of the Brightcove Alliance, a group of more than 200 global partners who build applications and services on the Brightcove platform.

The new Spanish customers range far and wide from publishers Conde Nast Digital Spain and Grupo V to video and music providers TQMadrid and Sony Music Spain. E-learning provider Virtagora 2010 uses the Brightcove offering to deliver its service to more and 200,000 students.

The platform is also slated for advertising use by Grupo Vocento, Real Media's Open AdStream, Atos Origin, Eyeblaster, Preview Networks Spain and Smartclip Hispania.

Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and CEO, said in a statement that the localization of the firm's platform by Spanish firms "will accelerate the adoption of our platform by media companies, marketers and organizations of all types across the country."