Viral video and video sites such as daily motion, youtube and google video have been really hot in the past years or so, but how long do you think this trend will last? Do you think viral video and the fad of uploading and sharing will continue to grow, or do you think it is going to level off soon? If you think this thing is going to continue, do you also think that like content sites, smaller niche based video sites are going to become more popular and profitable as time goes on?
<sidenote> We need an opinions icon!!!!</sidenote>
Jer
In my opinion this trend will continue but smaller niche video sites will become much more popular and profitable, the next job of the search engines is to properly index videos, not just go off the tags for the videos, but actually be able to turn the audio into text so the bots can read it or at least hear it and understand certain keywords in the video itself, other then that though over 53% of people online watch some form of online video, look at the below stats from revenue magazine.
Reactions and Behaviours of US Online Video Viewers Who Have Seen An Online Video Advertisement, April - May 2007
Elicited a responce: 45%
Checked out company website: 31%
Looked for more information: 28%
Searched for information about product: 22%
Clicked on banner ad that accompanied video: 19%
Bought something: 16%
Talked to friends/family about the product: 16%
Gone to store to check out product: 15%
Requested information about product: 13%
Made a purchase: 12%
Forwarded video ad to friends/family: 9%
Signed up for product/service trial: 9%
Called toll-free number to find out more: 5%
Ordered subscription: 4%
It also states that out of 80% of people who have watched some form of video advertisement more then half took some form of action because of it. I also think the following stats will hold true for some years to come.
Social Media applications that communications professionals worldwide use or plan to use in the next year:
Online Video: 63%
Blogs: 55%
RSS Or Web Feeds: 51%
Podcasts: 43%
Social Networks: 41%
So Online video is appearing as a leader in more and more of statistical information surrounding the internet and more people start to use it, look at Google Adsense who offers video advertisements on the following ad blocks 300x250 Medium Rectangle, 336x280 Large Rectangle, 250x250 Square, the source for more information on that is located at
Inside Adsense.
Check out
zanox.TV even though I haven't yet found an american sign up it looks pretty sweet or even check out
Eye Wonder Rich Media Ads, or
Admob for any mobile traffic, I say mobile with the video industry because more and more can watch videos right on there mobile phone which means that if they are on your site through a mobile phone watching your videos then you should have mobile advertisements.
In reality though video advertising online is still quite new in my mind, its still hard to find proper niche specific video ads or something related to video advertisements to mentionize your site with but I think that will become more readily available as time moves on.
This is why I build online video blogging tools, use videos in all of my blogs, and most of the time find a niche build the site but make sure at least 60 to 70% of it is videos, another great thing about the videos is that since the search engines can't properly index them based upon the audio yet, you've got some play with the type of keywords you can focus on more.
Thats just my thoughts though.
