Israel Digital News

Video sharing startup Metacafe appointed Erick Hachenburg as the company's CEO. Prior to joining Metacafe, Hachenburg was Electronic Art’s senior vice president of global online publishing and managing director of EA China. Hachenburg joined EA following the company’s 2001 acquisition of casual games firm Pogo.com, that Hachenburg founded. Arik Czerniak, co-founder and former CEO, will remain on the executive management team to focus on strategic product issues and partnerships.

Metacafe, an independent rival to online video service providers like YouTube, Break.com, Revver and GoogleVideo, expanded its management team early this year, with several new key executive hires. MetaCafe named Bud Colligan, former head of software maker Macromedia and a software investor at venture capital firm Accel Partners, as its chairman. Colligan co-founded Macromedia in 1992 through a merger of Authorware and Macromind-Paracomp. Prior to Macromedia, Colligan worked at Apple Computer's Macintosh Division.

The company hired Erik Smith as vice president of content and programming. Smith, who brings considerable experience in experience in bringing companies like ESPN, Fox Sports, Disney and ABC to emerging media platforms and youth media, will be responsible for building new media partnerships and developing an engaging content mix for the Metacafe site. MetaCafe also added Allyson Campa as Vice President of Marketing and Mort Greenberg as Vice President of Sales.

Metacafe attracts a global audience of more than 17 million unique viewers consuming 550 million page views every month, according to comScore report form December 2006. The company was one of the first to compensate creators for great video through the Metacafe Producer Rewards Program that pays video creators $5 for every 1,000 views of their short videos on the Metacafe site.

The company, which has headquarters in Palo Alto, California, has also opened an office in New York City to better serve its advertisers and media partners. The company Research and Development center are located in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Israel Digital Blog Ad – Peer to Peer File Transfer | USB Flash Drive Security| Multimedia Adaptation