The stats page gives advertisers access to just about every statistical facet of their campaign. Want to see how many times your ad was viewed on a particular day,  where your viewers live, which website they were visiting, or how much it cost you? Its all there.

Here’s a screenshot highlighting just a few of the bits of data we’re bringing out for advertisers to see. This of course is just scratching the surface.

As of this morning we’re pleased to announce that LiveRail will now be leveraging Amazon’s industry-leading server infrastructure and data centers to serve our video content. Amazon S3 is the ideal storage and delivery solution for LiveRail, because it will allow us to scale our service in a totally seamless manner. Access to Amazon’s incredible network of servers and data-centers will give LiveRail the ability to scale instantly and accommodate the huge and increasingly frequent spikes in traffic that we’ve been seeing. It will also give LiveRail’s video delivery the same robust reliability that Amazon themselves are so renowned for.

We look forward to getting feedback from you, our users. Hopefully you’ll see your videos loading faster than ever, and no matter how quickly we grow, you can be sure that your videos will stream smoothly and reliably even at the busiest times.

The data so far is encouraging, and CTR rates have actually doubled since this rollout. We have a couple more ammendments in the pipeline that should refine this even further, and prove to be more elegant long term solutions.

More info on those shortly.

But this is just the beginning. LiveRail is now busy laying the foundations for its future. We’re in talks to raise funding to support us and our community as we continue to grow and roll out what we hope will be the best video advertising platform in the world. We’re also working hard on our next big  system update too - which should fix a number of small bugs you’ve helped us discover. We’ll be introducing a bunch of new features to make the service even cooler and add additional services that will allow both advertisers and publishers to make the most of all that video advertising online enables. We think you’ll like what we’ve got in store!

We’ll be staying in beta for a few more weeks yet, so if you haven’t yet requested an invitation please do so now. We review every request and as long as you have something interesting to say we’re definitely letting new people join!

Just like all proud parents, we’re very excited to see how our baby handles its first steps into the wider world. We’ve poured our hearts into this project and built what we believe is the best video advertising platform on the web today. Over the coming weeks we’ll be refining the service and improving it in ways that will make it even better, faster and more robust. Once we’re satisfied that the system works flawlessly, we will leave beta, start accepting payments, and sharing revenue with our publishers.

But this is just the beginning.  We’re working hard on new features that will take LiveRail into new and exciting directions that we believe will help redefine the entire industry. Video advertising is on the verge of being totally re-imagined. All the rules of what works and what doesn’t, what can be done and what can’t, are being thrown out of the window and rewritten from scratch. As with any new beginning, it is full of promise and opportunity, with everything to play for.  Being part of such a dramatic revolution is exciting to say the least - most of all because we believe that its a revolution LiveRail can not only play a part in, but lead.

Here’s to the future, and to all the amazing things that you, our friends, customers and partners, will use the LiveRail platform to achieve.

Mark, Andrei and Sergiu
July 2007