Living the transition of the Internet to a fully multimedia environment
Video-related Internet traffic is doubling every 3-4 months, while popular video-oriented sites report even faster growth. Private and public company valuations, and corporate and venture capital investments have all reached new highs, and even ventures with unproven and unclear business models are attracting funding and buzz. The scene reminds of the peak of the dot-com boom. Is this boom real?
The reality is that we are living the transition of the Internet to a fully multimedia environment, the second generation of the Internet. It is "the evolution of media from one-way to two-way, from mass to specific, and from mostly linear to mostly on-demand", says Michael Gordon, co-founder and CEO of Limelight Networks, Inc.
Enormous biz opportunities
The old model of a captive viewer subjected to a stream of wanted or unwanted content is evolving into a relationship where content is accepted because is interesting, useful and desired by the user.
This wave of change will have profound influences on the producers and consumers of media content, and on the economic relationships among them. And it will create enormous business opportunities.
How much is YouTube? $1 billion? Seems so after Grouper's acquisition
This week Sony Pictures Entertainment announced the purchase of Grouper.com for $65 million, and as a result of this, some analysts put a price to YouTube, the online market leader. RadarResearch manager Aram Sinnreich said that he "wouldn't be surprised to see YouTube receive a bid of $1 billion. Whether the company is worth it is another question."
Concerning Grouper transaction, the first big media acquisition of a user created video, Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton said: "Many people in the Grouper community use Sony cameras and Sony Vaio computers to create videos. It makes sense to complete the circle by having Grouper be part of Sony." According to some analysts, Sony wants to capitalize on their own content and marry it with some user-generated content. Now Grouper makes up less than 1% share of video compared with YouTube's 43 %. (See article "Post video comments on any video clip, the latest feature").
A web TV channel to help everyone in video production and graphic design
Digital Juice Television (DJTV) is new Web-based Television Network dedicated to techniques, technology, tools and tips for video editors and graphic designers. Industry experts share their secrets along several programs.
It costs the viewer nothing: there is no sign up or subscription to pay. Every week they will treat focused topics. DJTV will be streamed even to iPod.
YouTube and MySpace attract 75 % of video searches; Google, only 7%
Where is Google when it is about empowering people to search video clips? It is easy: lost in the search ranking. According to Hitwise, in May 2006, YouTube.com and MySpace.com were the number 1 and number 2 video search and delivery sites, with 42 % and 24 % shares. Yahoo, MSN, and Google each has a video share under 10 %.
Google, the market leader in text search is only #5 in video, with less than 7% share. Two young companies, one less than two years old (YouTube) and one less than three years old (MySpace), togheter attracted more than three-fourths of video search and deliveries.
Video viral campaign of finger-ball got a big success for H.P.
One of the most successful viral campaign of the year has been based on FingerSkilz.tv video clips. This site was supposedly created weeks before the soccer World Cup by a bored young office worker. Later on Hewlett-Packard revealed that they were in charge of this campaign aimed to imbue H.P's laptops and PC's with some of the coolness associated with Apple.
FingerSkilz.tv featured some videos of a man's hand on a desk, using two fingers to perform soccer tricks with a paper made ball. The site attracted hundred of thousand visitors, prompted widespread discussions on blogs, and moved imitators to create and post their own finger-ball videos. (By the way, Hewlett-Packard forgot to disclosure that the tricks were computer-generated images).
