Mercury News:
Want to know where to find good falafel in Manhattan? See the sights of a trendy neighborhood in Montreal? Or perhaps glimpse the wares at the farmers market in downtown San Jose? TurnHere, a new online video company, wants to show you around.
Its motto is ’short films, cool places.’ The Emeryville company, started in June, plans to produce about 25,000 short videos this year, most of them about neighborhoods and their local attractions. Some are advertisements for small businesses, but with a movie-like feel. All are shot and edited by professional filmmakers and available online.
TurnHere syndicates its films through partnerships with portals like Yahoo! and Google, licenses them to other Web sites, sells ads on its own site, and acts as both production studio and distributor for businesses that want to use video for marketing. The company is exploring many other potential revenue-generating uses for the films, including running ads with them.
‘The idea is that you would be able to go into TurnHere and see just about anything, anywhere at any given time… and get an authentic local narrator,’ founder and Chief Executive Bradley Inman said. ‘When you go travel you want a local to tell you where to eat. You don’t come back and say Oh, I had a wonderful Starbucks.’ You come back and say, We found this cool little place.’ Read about the wide-ranging topics.
Subscribe 
