Online Video Use Growing
According to a report by ComScore Media Metrix, 107 million Americans viewed just over 7Bln online videos in July. That's almost 70 videos per person, or about 2 per day per person. YouTube, however, was only the third highest provider of content, and Google was somewhere lower.
The surprise, to me anyway, is that Yahoo was first and MySpace second. There are, of course, numerous other sites that offer video, but the ones that have made themselves viral (that is, allow their content to be embedded on other websites) have a larger piece of the market share. Which is a shame because sites like Atom Films have been offering quality indie films and other video content since at least 1999. But even today, you still cannot embed their content, as far as I can tell.
IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), a hot growth area of IP convergence, is a more encompassing term for online video content, including live broadcasts. Recently, Microsoft announced a deal to exclusively broadcast live online concerts over the next few years. This week, Om Malik broke a story that the founders of Kazaa and Skype are working on something codenamed The Venice Project, which will be a P2P (peer-to-peer) platform for IPTV, and will include an ad-based system. When this tantalizing-sounding piece of IPTV software comes out, and if Kazaa and Skype popularity is any indication, expect the per person average for online video watching to skyrocket.
Note: Just before I posted this, CNBC TV had a segment suggesting that YouTube might go down the tubes completely because of copyright issues and potential (not pending) lawsuits. If Hollywood and the music industries are smart, they'll sign a deal instead of turning on YouTube. Of course, mouth Mark Cuban said that only a moron would buy YouTube, but that's not what I'm suggesting the entertainment industry do.
[additional sources: Teleclick, CNBC TV]
Written by ewriter on October 5th, 2006 with
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