Mark Hayes Director of B’ss Dev’t for Online Video Platforms, Front Porch

Front Porch Digital announced the appointment of Mark Hayes as director of business development for online video platforms (OVPs). In the new position, Hayes’ primary responsibility will be developing new revenue opportunities for DIVApublish, the Front Porch Digital solution that automates content workflows from existing archival storage to comprehensive digital management and targeted online distribution.

 Hayes’ experience in the online video industry began at Macromedia where he handled business development for what is now Flash Media Server, and managed OEM licensing to major content delivery networks (CDNs). He has also served as a consultant to multiple CDNs and as vice president of marketing and business development at Highwinds. There he helped create the go-to-market strategy for the CDN division, developed partnerships with OVP providers and other technology companies, and devised end-to-end solutions for delivering online video content.

"For many years, Front Porch Digital has been renowned as a leader in archiving and content storage management. More recently it has gained recognition for its SAMMA digital migration solutions," said Hayes. "Now comes the natural progression, DIVApublish, a cloud-based system for taking content to online distribution as part of a seamless workflow. For me, representing DIVApublish is a great opportunity. I have invested a lot of time and energy in understanding the OVP ecosystem – the many entities that play a role – and I’m keen on leveraging that knowledge, as well as my background in sales and sales management, on behalf of a game-changing product."

Part of Front Porch Digital’s DIVASolutions family, DIVApublish is a cloud-based service that automatically creates deeply searchable frame-level metadata for video content, then manages its distribution to designated online communities. With DIVApublish, users can delve deep into their content and manage it precisely and effectively using advanced tools such as facial recognition, scene detection, speech recognition, natural language processing, ad-break detection, and closed-caption time alignment. Earlier this fall, DIVApublish earned both Best of IBC and TV Technology STAR awards.

Hayes will be based at Front Porch Digital’s Louisville, Colo., headquarters, reporting to Mark Gray, the company’s executive vice president. He takes over his new responsibilities Nov. 1.