Grab Media, which has been at the forefront of what I've called the "Syndicated Video Economy," is gaining traction with its recently-released "GrabPress" video plug-in for the WordPress content management system. GrabPress allows publishers of any size using WordPress to quickly customize and embed a feed of video from Grab Media' s ever-growing catalog of 500K+ video clips directly into their web pages. Grab Press has been downloaded 3,500 times to date.

Grab executives recently explained to me that while the company's core mission of connecting video providers with a distribution network of publishers remains the same, the mechanism for doing so has changed significantly over the past year. The big driver of this is that advertisers have become reluctant to place video ads against syndicated video content showing up in right column 300x250 units. As such, Grab has sought, with GrabPress, to enable video content to be more contextually integrated with publishers' own content.

In addition to being able to offer richer content to their audiences, publishers also gain higher CPM video ad inventory. As with all syndication models, ad revenue is split between the content provider, publisher and syndication intermediary (e.g. Grab).

After installing GrabPress and setting up an account, publishers begin by creating feeds. These feeds are based on search and other criteria, and can be customized to update on a set frequency. Videos come in an embeddable video player, with an image, tags and customizable text. Videos can be set to either auto-play or click-to-play. Publishers choose how to use their GrabPress feeds on their sites; they can be placed in topical areas, certain relevant pages, or even to build entire video-centric sections.

I've been bullish on the syndicated video model for a while now, as I believe the higher cost of producing quality video makes wide distribution a must in order to generate a strong ROI. And with video CPMs strong for quality content, it makes a ton of sense for all publishers to include video. Yet for many, creating their own video is an expensive proposition, which syndication nicely addresses. Now with GrabPress, obtaining quality video content seems easier than ever for those publishers using the WordPress CMS. All of this suggests GrabPress should see strong adoption.