Brightcove is a video platform provider we've followed here at Mashable pretty much from its inception. Today they're rolling out the announcement of the next version of their platform software. Brightcove 3, as it's called, is a beta program giving users of the service access to a new version of the system with a number of new features, including layout and integration features that in testing have statistically increased the number of videos viewed on a per visitor level, as well as "increasing engagement," a term I take to mean increased sharing of the video with others.
The press release information talks up heavily the increased emphasis on supporting long form programming much better, but is very short on details. Since I don't have access to the new platform to check it out at the moment, it's pretty difficult to say how they've done in this respect. Brightcove never was that terrible when it came to dealing with short form or long form video. I've had videos that were five to ten minutes in length on up to videos that were over an hour hosted on the service. I've even had them mixed in the same channel without difficulty.
Brightcove's strength has always been taking pre-recorded and non-live programming and adapting it to the web format more beautifully and fitting to a particular website's aesthetics than any other Flash-based player. To try to improve upon that is admirable, but comes off as guilding the lilly.