New content is viewer's choice
Users feeding Internet video revolution
YouTube is streaming more than 100 million videos per day, while users upload 65,000 new videos per day. The blog search engine Technorati tracks nearly 50 million blogs. And Apple distributes more than 60,000 podcasts through iTunes, most created by amateurs.
As broadband speeds up and tools like digital video cameras and editing software proliferate at cheaper prices, the amount of user-generated content on the Internet will keep growing. Machinima is still a niche genre made and enjoyed primarily by hardcore gamers (see sidebar), but it's just one example of the many types of content being created by amateurs today that, just a decade ago, would have taken dozens of professionals and a six- or seven-figure investment.
Amid this content-creation explosion, hundreds if not thousands of companies are springing up in hopes of profiting from the phenomenon by hosting, distributing or monetizing all of it.
In the area of video alone, there are more than 100 competitors, all looking for a fraction of YouTube's success. Some are part of major media companies like Google, Yahoo and Viacom, while others are venture-backed startups like Revver, Vmix and Blip.tv.
But while it's not so difficult to host content and run ads next to it, those in the digital biz say the next major challenge to converting online video into a major business is helping Netizens sort through it all and find what they want.
"People here sometimes laugh about how we're facing the same challenges to put a structure on all the video online today as Yahoo did with the first Web pages a decade ago," says Jason Zajac, general manager of social media, search and marketplace for Yahoo. "People need a place to start and a structure to help them navigate content in a period of massive growth and fragmentation."
In the traditional media world, of course, content is still presented pretty much as it was 50 years ago. While the growth of technology such as digital video recorders has made schedules less important, a small group of Hollywood execs still determine when and where a TV show or movie will be available.
Online, however, that power is in the hands of the viewer.
Currently, most video Web sites sort content primarily into categories selected by uploaders ("comedy," "sports," "documentary," etc.) along with "tags" -- words that content creators or viewers select to describe a video. iTunes uses the same system for podcasts.
"My feeling is that these tools are pretty crude," says Thomas McInerny, CEO of online video company Guba. "We need innovations that are simultaneously more sophisticated on the backend but simpler for consumers who just want to find content they'll enjoy."
Proponents point out that, with the ability to rate and share content, the Web brings democracy to programming, putting regular people rather than Hollywood execs in charge of what content gets highlighted. But it's only a particular subset of Americans who have the time and desire to interact with online content. As a result, what rises to the top is often a specific type of content.
"I think there is a perception right now that video on the Internet is all from the 'America's Funniest Home Videos' genre," observes Yahoo's Zajak.
While search engines are constantly improving, most Netcos are trying to "program" content for viewers via a combination of editorial selection; computer algorithms that try to select what you'd like based on your revealed tastes; and so-called "collaborative filtering," in which users, through their subscriptions and ratings, influence what other Web surfers find.
Big media companies like Yahoo and Google, along with the venture capitalists who invest in startups, are pouring money into content aggregation and search, especially video, because consumer interest is booming along with the opportunities to advertise alongside it.
The most revolutionary opportunity, however, may come as broadband infiltrates every area of the home and users can access virtually any piece of content through an Internet-connected display in their living room.
While Hollywood content is popping up -- legally -- more and more on the 'Net, it's still very clearly differentiated from the piece of machinima made by your nephew (see sidebar).
Companies like Veoh, a broadband video startup funded in part by Michael Eisner, are counting on that line blurring, to the point where sports fans might be automatically programmed with a show from ESPN followed by a video from a group of teenage skateboarders.
"At the end of the day, it shouldn't be relevant who made it," says Veoh CEO Dmitri Shapiro. "What matters is that each user is proactively being programmed whatever it is that he or she wants to see."
