Veoh Lays Off 20%

Veoh, the online video startup, has made its second round of layoffs this fall, cutting 20 percent of its 110 employees this afternoon out of both its San Diego and Los Angeles offices. It said it still expects to be profitable next year.

“We have to make sure we have enough capital to weather the [economic] storm and ensure that we are operating with an efficient footprint,” Veoh CEO Steve Mitgang told us.

Mitgang sees Veoh’s primary objectives as one, organizing video; two, helping people discover video; and three, making money. He also said the company has had to make a number of tactical decisions in the last year to save money, including exiting international markets, building a plug-in for peer-to-peer streaming in the browser in order to lower bandwidth costs, and laying off its St. Petersburg development office in order to hire people with more appropriate skills in the U.S. However, Mitgang did not name any projects that would be cut in association with the layoffs.

Mitgang said Veoh has a global audience of between 25 million and 28 million, with more than a third of that in the U.S. We were struck by his comment that Veoh has had success monetizing by “selling audience.” That means the site targets its advertising based on users’ behavior rather than the content itself. And what that means is that Veoh is actually monetizing user-generated content, something few people are even trying (the key word for most everyone else is “premium.”)