MeeVee Upgrades

TV and entertainment listing site MeeVee has launched a new version of its service with content and ad targeting upgrades. Users can now fine tune their preferences, and locate programming across a broader range of media.

The platform offers marketers targeted banner and video units. Since the site collects basic information on users, it is able to target specific demographic and psychographic segments. Marketers can reach users at a specific time of day, or when they access certain content on the site. On a Wednesday during primetime, for instance, a user might see ads for ABC’s “Lost,” or a person with a specified preference for romantic comedy might be served ads for a given feature film when she logs in.

“We can target a user experience, upon entry to a page or the site, or what they do on the site,” said Michael Raneri, president of MeeVee.

Listings served by MeeVee will also appear on Web sites and portals. The company has struck two such deals with USA Today and Hearst.

In addition to customizing their preferences, users will soon be able to program the site to aggregate content pulled from the Web. Selecting a preference for “shark” doesn’t just notify users of all the programs the Discovery Channel is showing for shark week, but will actually pull video from the Web. With the growing number of TV networks making content available on the Web, the range of video spans from what’s posted on YouTube or MSN’s Soapbox to NBC and other networks.

“The more content is disintermediated, the more there is a need for a virtual content aggregator for [the] search and discovery experience,” said Raneri.

Users can then take select video and plug it into a widget to reside on their MySpace page or blog.

MeeVee has plans beyond the ability to seek out content from online video sharing sites. Several major entertainment content deals like one with MTV Overdrive. Additional enhancements will be a premium content offering through Akimbo and iFilm, and the ability to program a DVR from the listings, and possibly move Internet content to a TiVo device or set top box.