In a video interview this morning, super angel investor Ron Conway boasted about his excitement for tools that can monetize web video.
Great. Problem is, we’ve got plenty. In other words, while everyone is talking about whether Conway is right or wrong about liquidity clauses for entrepreneurs in financing rounds, the core of his argument is worth looking at.
On May 25th 2007, Jeremy Liew penned a post on Newteevee talking about all of the players vying to monetize video content, he names a “few:”
Online video is hot and everyone is scrambling to figure out how to best monetize it. Google just launched their “adsense for video” product, Advertising.com has Instream, and there are a host of startups attacking the problem as well.
Hmm… in case you’re wondering, all of the underlines texts are examples of competitors:
- Brightcove | see my post about why Brightcove should keep it simple stupid here.
- Brightroll | see my interview with CEO Tod Saceroti here.
- Video Egg | see my interview with CEO Matt Sanchez here.
- Tremor Media
- Broadband Enterprises
- Yume
- Scanscout
- Google/YouTube
- AOL/Advertising.com/Instream
- VideoMovement
- etc.
And then, you have the video search players:
- Blinkx
- Pixsy
- Podzinger/Everyzing/todayournewnameis | see my interview with CEO Alex Laats here.
- Hmm… Google/YouTube?
Reading Paul LaMonica’s article today on “Search being the next big thing in online video” is just one example.
But wait, there’s the media companies:
- NBC’s NBBC | see my interview with here.
- NBC/News Corp.’s NewCo.
Video is the best thing since sliced bread, I know, that’s why we’re investing heavily to become a leader in video content, be it for web, wireless or out of home markets, but I think we’re already at an over-invested level in online video networks and monetization tools. Just so it’s clear: I do think that it’s highly possible that the Google of online video has yet to be founded, let alone funded, but the odds of that are hard given the plethora of players Liew lists.
You have to realize one thing: content can be monetized multiple times, I can syndicate my content and monetize elsewhere. I can publish it on WatchMojo.com and monetize the display/banner real estate, the pre/post roll real estate, the embedded bugs/buttons etc.
But, I will probably not use more than one, or two platforms or tools.
And, when you dig deeper, you see that online video, as is, is a much smaller market than search or display/banners. Video is maybe a $3B in 2010, paid search will be $12B by then, display/banners somewhere in between.
In other words, it’s good to be excited and bullish, trust me, we are too, but we need to exert some common sense and caution.
Last year when YouTube sold to Google I said that it would be a tough road ahead for video file sharing social networking sites, that proved to be somewhat true with Guba’s CEO leaving and Revver’s CEO being demoted to Chairman (yeah you read that right) and this, a few quarters after 2/3 of the founding management team got canned by the VCs when the CEO Starr was on vacation. Really would love to have those VCs on board.
You can place bets where you see fit, but something tells me a major shakeout in video ad networks is impending in 2008.
Disclaimer: WatchMojo.com produces video content and our sister company MetaMojo.com has a metavideo search engine.
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