Comments on: Predictions: Gazing into the online video crystal ball

By: bill collier

bill collier — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:41:32 +0000

I’m not a pessimist by any means, but I have a feeling the consumer will slow down a lot of the advancement in the future. 1- of course economic reasons, and 2- I believe the consumer’s cup so to speak is getting kinda full. Future technology is going to be a much harder sell for common folk. Of course we techies will always crave.

By: Renee

Renee — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:06:20 +0000

Interesting points. My biggest surprise was you opinion that Facebook will overtake YouTube within 5 years rather than a wild card which is what many others contend.

By: Topher

Topher — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:01:42 +0000

Good post, and while its hard to predict the future (in any field), I think your suggestions all make sense. As you say, it will be the new and unforeseen events that will make it truly exciting. The social graph is important as you say, especially as most laptops have their own webcams, etc… so the accessibility to creating (even very basic) video is increasing all the time. Cisco said earlier this year that by 2015 most internet traffic will be video. There will always be a natural filter for content though – good, content-driven video will always rise to the surface, although perhaps not as quickly or quite as far as television has influenced previously. In fact, the need and desire for high-quality content will probably rise, as people become bored with 30-second clips of cats on YouTube. Good article, and good read, and, above all, thought provoking. Maybe the biggest question is how future online video will be monitized (the million (billion?) dollar question) ;)

By: Pandurang Nayak

Pandurang Nayak — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 07:06:01 +0000

Interesting points. I think 5 years is a pretty long timeframe for the Internet. Most of what you have mentioned will happen much sooner.

I think a big change that will happen is the end-user consumption patterns changing and the “filters” you mention will actually have to be on aggregators who bring the content from various sources into a common experience – companies like Roku are in that direction already. A lot of this behavioral change will also drive technology innovation.

I also think we will see more advances in fields like 3D, video compression, reducing bandwidth rates, storage costs and many of the big barriers that prevent video to be produced, delivered or consumed without economies of scale. This change could trigger a lot of UGC content bridging closer to premium content. Remember today’s premier content is still made for the traditional medium. Content made specifically for consumption by the online medium is largely in the form of UGC today.

Finally, there will be some consolidation and some breakthrough innovations – that will add yet-to-be-discovered dimensions to video. This is akin to what Facebook’s social graph did to the Internet as we knew it. There will be something we are yet to see that will change something fundamental. Because 5 years is a lot of time!!!

By: Jonathan Glazier JG

Jonathan Glazier JG — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:18:27 +0000

Very interesting, I predicted that event TV, Live TV was really going to be the life blood of Broadcast TV years before the live viewing fest of today, 15 years ago TV went through a period of recording everything, either through fear or economics, it was the answer to every problem, it resulted in sterile dull TV. Now, it’s not just the sporting events, but the inclusive live events of Celebrity Get me Out of Here, Idol Xfactor, Dancing with the Stars etc. that capyure large audiences. If you look at broadcast TV it is its very reason for being, if you don’t catch it live more and more today there is no point in even thinking about watching those shows VOD or even on the plus PVR services around the world, the results will have been tweeted, facebooked and spoiled before you get close to watching a recording. Live TV puts the audience on the spot, watch this now or miss out. And that gets ratings and that drives the revenue. The interesting thing is that we cant always be sitting in fornt of the family TV when the event is live, in pops mobile live video streaming and you have the answer. NO more discreet headphones and stifled cheers from the congregation at the wedding on cup final day, just the bowed heads of eyes glued to their iphone/htc’s in the car on the way home from saturday sports and the passengers can be glued to xfactor live. And then there are the local and business possibilities, don’t spend the money or time on attending, watch the keynote/AGM/ graduation/wedding – live from where-ever you are. My advice if you are in video get into live streaming.

By: Charlie Davis

Charlie Davis — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:26:05 +0000

Nice article, Rags. Analytics, tagging, and filters need to be a primary focus if we’re to make sense of the noise. Curating content can be exhausting if its done manually and without guidance.

Interesting point about video consumption in Facebook – I could see Facebook being the front-end and YouTube handling the backend in time. Facebook users primarily link out to video content and playing that content gets tracked back to the source in most cases. Comscore numbers for the last year have shown Facebook is hovering around the top five online video sites, but still hosts a fraction of viewing sessions per month – ~180 million versus ~5.6 billion). Obviously these numbers are around viewing of content, not sites in which they are viewed. If Comscore or Nielsen tracked that info I’m sure we would see some interesting figures close to what you’re saying.

By: Vinod

Vinod — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:43:16 +0000

An EPG is the gateway to content on TV already. On the web this will be even more powerful given the wealth of analytics it accumulates. I believe that a guide to web video has to rethink the EPG – personalization, social curation etc.

By: Rags Gupta

Rags Gupta — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:53:50 +0000

Good point, Billy on the Basketball World Cup. I guess my point was that something like that would be elevated to true ‘worldwide’ status (ie hundreds of millions to billion people following it), which I don’t think is there just yet.

By: Billy Polcha

Billy Polcha — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:37:26 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIBA_World_Championship = there already is a “basketball World Cup.” There are already plenty of “tent pole” sporting events in the world. The fact is, the world is becoming “Flatter(Thomas Friedman)” thus causing plenty of sports to grow in international popularity. For example: 2008 was the first time ever that the Soccer World Cup was viewable via a non-pay-per-view(non-ppv) format in The USA. The 2008 World Cup was viewable via the ESPN networks. The World Of Sports does not need a Hollywood choreographer, the world of sports is already the most valuable commodity in TV!!!!!!

By: Dan Thornton

Dan Thornton — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:49:34 +0000

Interesting to see your views on premium sports expanding – I’ve actually been experimenting with some sites based around the idea videogame genres are rapidly expanding to the point that specialist insight is being needed into the type of game, much as sports or music currently have…