CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, December 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightcove Inc., the leading online video platform, today announced that Rakuten, Inc. has selected Brightcove to power new online video initiatives for its online shopping mall property. Rakuten, the biggest e-commerce website operator in Japan with more than 50 million registered users, is taking advantage of the recently launched fully-localized version of the Brightcove platform to introduce a more interactive, engaging purchasing experience through high quality online video content. Rakuten is also pioneering an innovative new use case in the Japanese market, as online merchants are able to upload user-generated content through the Brightcove platform and add it to their online presence on the Rakuten site.

We are thrilled to be the online video platform behind Rakuten's new video initiatives, said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and chief executive officer at Brightcove. E-commerce organizations like Rakuten are on the cutting edge of using online video to improve user engagement and to deliver a more dynamic online shopping experience. We look forward to helping Rakuten expand its footprint in Japan and around the world through engaging, high quality online video experiences.

Rakuten serves as a platform for merchants to sell their products online and is among the top ten largest Internet companies in the world. The site features a shopping mall, Rakuten Ichiba, as well as portal sites for travel, Internet banking and more. Using the fully-localized Brightcove platform, Rakuten recently launched a video section on their site to complement existing content and to drive purchases through increased user engagement with their online shopping mall property. The dynamic features of the Brightcove platform and its integration with J-Stream, Inc., a pioneer company which offers video delivery infrastructure in Japan, enable Rakuten to easily publish and distribute high quality video content, as well as user-generated content from individual merchants, to foster a more interactive purchasing experience for visitors. Rakuten also operates an online DVD rental site with trailers for campaigns and new releases powered by Brightcove.

Brightcove established its majority-owned subsidiary in Japan, Brightcove KK, in 2008 with US$4.9 million in new investment from Brightcove Inc. and four market-leading Japanese strategic partners: Dentsu, Inc., J-Stream, Inc., transcosmos, Inc. (transcosmos), and cyber communications, inc. (cci). Brightcove KK is a fully staffed operation that includes a leadership team and sales, marketing, engineering and customer support staff all based in Japan.

About Brightcove

Brightcove is an online video platform. Media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide use Brightcove to publish and distribute video on the Web. Founded in 2004, Brightcove is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business with offices across North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.

SOURCE: Brightcove Inc.

CONTACT: North America, Erika Shaffer of SutherlandGold Group,+1-206-972-5514, erika@sutherlandgold.com, for Brightcove; or Japan, RieKubota of LBS Co., Ltd., +81-3-3769-1351, rkubota@lbs.co.jp, forBrightcove; or Europe, Stephen Orr, of AxiCom, +44-20-8392-4056,stephen.orr@axicom.com, for Brightcove