• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 19, 2015

The first projects will be interactive video for several of CNE’s established digital video series.

Rapt will help CNE create interactive video content with formats that allow viewers to personalize their viewing experience and follow topics that are of interest to them. The series will be available on The Scene, CNE’s digital video hub showcasing digital video content from CNE as well as other traditional and new media companies.

On the advertiser side, CNE will also make Rapt’s platform available to advertisers as part of new integrated marketing packages. The capabilities on offer include interactive video within ad units, again giving viewers greater control over how they view the ads and explore advertiser content, for example, with native advertising.

The Rapt video platform’s interactive features include a branching narrative function, which allows publishers to boost viewer engagement by presenting videos in sequence. Publishers can create “hotspots” that link to additional videos as well as external URLs, or to Web sites where the original video is embedded. The video nodes are crawlable by search engines, so video content will appear in search results.

More publishers are partnering with online tech firms to bring new interactive capabilities to their video content. Earlier this week, humor publisher Funny or Die revealed that it is adding new ways to monetize its content and advertiser buys through a partnership with interactive video tech firm Multipop. It will allow publishers and marketers to transform their video with interactive content without disrupting the viewing experience.

Multipop’s platform allows publishers to integrate interactive features, including e-commerce tie-ins, social sharing and nonintrusive advertising options, all of which can be integrated with the main video player in a variety of formats. It also enables features like voting, simultaneous Web surfing and viewing, and organically integrated content extensions.