Google’s EMEA video partnerships director Patrick Walker has invested in and is joining the board of Ashley Mackenzie’s web video rights broker Myvideorights.com.
Walker’s day job is getting TV and other brands to create YouTube channels – there are over 600 in his patch. Myvideorights.com, meanwhile, offers to license TV producers’ clips to video sites in exchange for a cut of ad revenue.
Though Walker’s addition would seem to offer several synergies for YouTube and Myvideorights.com (more content for the former, more distribution for the latter), the pair stress he is making the investment personally and will be a non-executive director; so this doesn’t herald a strategic partnership. One link-up was already likely – Myvideorights.com was planning to plug its video upload systems in to YouTube through the latter’s API.
Walker isn’t the first British Googler to make an investment of his own, of course – John Burke put money in to education site Teachit last month. Myvideorights.com already had a stellar lineup of backers – former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, his son Ashley, ex Endemol creative chief Peter Bazelgette, ex Carlton CEO Rupert Dilnott-Cooper etc. Richard & Judy producer All3Media and ESPN (NYSE: DIS) are amongst initial clients, for whom Myvideorights.com encodes and distributes video.