(Forbes.com) — LOS ANGELES, Oct 11, 2007 - Webcastr.com, a new portal of Internet television programming set to launch next month, was inundated by viewers last Friday morning when it featured the new Britney Spears video, “Gimme More” prior to its official release this week. Word of the video leak quickly spread throughout the blogosphere, eventually landing on popular celebrity gossip sites like “Pop Culture Madness” and “Pink is the New Blog.” From there, interest in the video spread worldwide with people seeking a chance to view the new clip before its official release date, causing the site, which is still in beta testing, to crash before it even had a chance to officially launch. “We were totally caught off guard by the global magnitude of the response,” explains Webcastr founder Tim Devine.
“We had traffic from 93 countries in a little over six hours and had to immediately get more server capacity weeks before we anticipated needing it.”
While the service was being restored, Webcastr locked in additional coverage of the Spears’ video from TMZ.com to satisfy the thousands of fans that were still accessing the site throughout the weekend.
A second test came yesterday, when the site was mentioned in a front page story on the Huffington Post for airing a series of videos from the John Edwards’ campaign that had mysteriously disappeared from the web two years ago. This time the site was able to handle the surge in traffic generated via the popular blog.
Launching next month, Webcastr delivers the best of Internet Television covering the fields of news, sports, music, celebrity, politics and more with over 200 channel providers already on-board.
Founded by former Sony Music Executive, Tim Devine, the company serves as a counter to popular clip sharing sites such as YouTube and Revver. “We are an outlet for the explosive new area of Internet TV as well as presenting the best in clip coverage from professional and pro-am sources,” says Devine. “People are tired of sorting thru amateur clips just to find what they need. We seek to deliver the kind of quality content that viewers find most vital on a daily basis.”
A year ago, Devine was sitting at the top of Sony’s Columbia Records West Coast operation as GM and SVP, Artists and Repertoire. A man whose shrewd skills as a talent scout, dealmaker and corporate player helped plump record company coffers to the tune of half a billion dollars across the last two decades, he’d been instrumental in the careers of such diverse artists as U2, Prince, Devo, Bonnie Raitt, the Beastie Boys, Blind Melon, The Offspring, Train, Switchfoot and dozens of other name acts. But now he found himself awash in an entertainment technology sea change that was swamping the traditional label model. 
