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YouTube & The Future of Video
By Ryan Gambrill | July 24, 2007
Last night was a monumental. The most important component of the Democratic Party’s debates had nothing to do with the candidates nor the topics they rambled about. Instead, the star was participation of the general public. More specifically, it was HOW the general public took part. It is more clear now than ever that YouTube and the world on online video has changed our lives. We will never be the same.
YouTube allowed average everyday people to ask the candidates specific questions that were important to them. These Americans used home video cameras, web cam’s, and the like, to create sincere messages. For once candidates and viewers had a chance to hear, see, and feel the emotion of the exact person that was asking the question. No longer is a question going to come from a piece of paper, but from a real person.
In two short years YouTube has gone from a nothing website to revolutionizing the political landscape. They will not stop there.
Fathom has been pushing our clients to participate in the online video revolution. This has been challenging to say the least. Our clients want us to give them specific examples of how online video is going to improve their bottom line and increase the value of their business. We can come up with various hypotheses, but none of us really have an exact answer.
But, there is one thing that we do know. The forward thinking organizations will stumble and possibly fall as they learn how to monetize online video. In the end, these groups will be so far ahead of their competition that it will be very hard to catch them.
If we look at the current organic search algorithms, we can see that the search engines place a large amount of weight on the age and quality of a website and domain. Our in-house video expert (Jim Kukral) feels that a similar algorithm is being used to rank videos. I happen to agree. Especially when you take a look at the direction Google is taking their SERPS. All I have to say is “Google Universal Search”. For all types of results to be displayed on one page, the algorithms need to be similar.
If you have clients that are resisting the online video revolution, I have three words for them. Home Shopping Network. The black and white television did not become available until the mid 60’s. It took until 1982 for a group of people to figure out a way to use broadcast video to sell their products directly to the public. While I do not think that this is exactly what will happen to online video. I do know that the power of capitalism is very strong. It will not take long for large scale monetization of video to take place. When it does, the pioneers will have a large part of their industries completely cornered.
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July 24th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Ryan, I think the idea of the revolutionary potential of web video is one that cannot be overstated. Any savvy company or individual that is mindful of both promotion and communication should pay heed. One of my friends currently works for a company whose main commercial competitor is reaping the benefits of a viral online video campaign. The people at my friend’s company, however, fail to see the importance of video marketing despite the rousing success of said competitor. My friend is struggling to convince the rest of management to jump on the train, so I sent him your blog post to pass along to his colleagues. So, for more reasons than one am I glad you chose the topic of online video for your post today.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Online video will be monetized in the very near future because Google wouldn’t have purchased YouTube for 1 billion+ unless they had a plan in place to recoup those $$
July 25th, 2007 at 4:29 am
With video being a fast way for the general public to absorb information (a picture says a thousand words), It’s popularity will continue to increase (supplemented further by broadband technology getting better - meaning cheaper bandwidth).
There is no doubt that the search engines that be will refine and perfect the art of image and video search, it’s just a matter of time. Universal search is just the beginning.