IRIS.TV is officially launching its SmartStreaming product to help content providers drive more video views per viewer. SmartStreaming plugs into online video platforms so they can offer their content customers thumbs up/down and skip buttons in their video players, giving viewers more control over their video experiences. As they engage with these buttons, SmartStreaming learns their preferences and presents subsequent recommended videos.

The first OVPs that have integrated SmartStreaming are Brightcove, Kaltura and Unicorn Media. Field Garthwaite, CEO told me in a briefing that SmartStreaming is also compatible with thePlatform and JW Player from LongTail Video.

By giving viewers more control and presenting them with personalized recommendations, IRIS.TV's goal is to get viewers to watch more video and hence drive improved monetization for content providers. Field compared SmartStreaming to some of the features Ooyala recently introduced in its Ooyala Discovery Guide, and what companies like Outbrain and Taboola do with content recommendations. In previous limited testing the system has shown viewership improvements from 40-400%.

To create the recommendations, SmartStreaming first scans the content provider's full library ingesting metadata and building a new layer of correlations. An analytics module provides insights on how specific pieces of content are performing and the correlations, among other things.

IRIS.TV's model is to charge a fixed CPM fee per incremental view driven due to SmartStreaming. The company is based in LA and has 10 employees with backgrounds at HBO, Deluxe, Hulu, MGID, ABC, Yahoo, Rand Corp. and Rubicon Project. Previously the company built Jukebox TV and movingart.com.