Video has long been the killer app. As online advertising continues to siphon away marketing dollars from traditional media such as print, outdoors, radio and television, it is a matter of when - and not if - online video will surpass today’s king of web advertising, search.
But no one is really sure whether the winner within online video will be platforms, ad networks, or content players.
Interestingly, in:
- 2006 we saw an over-investment in online video file sharing social networks, platforms in essence. Bear in mind, in this space, YouTube has already “won” and done so on only $11.5M in funding. Veoh, Daily Motion, Metacafe and Break are raising $25M and more to fight for #3, in essence, since MySpace TV is #2 after YouTube.
- 2007 the attention turned to video ad networks. We did, in all fairness, see some VC activity in video content, and I think that will continue in 2008. But next to file sharing sites or ad networks, content was underfunded given marketers aversion to UGC and traditional media companies slow migration to the Web.
At which point I asked if the bubble within online video had moved from file sharing networks to ad networks.
I think 2008 is creating another mini-bubble, did you know that there were 14 ways to stream yourself to the Web.
Is that really necessary? I guess so.
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