Here is the stark reality of online video: nobody is making much money and the enthusiastic projections for online video advertising going from $500 million in 2008 to more than $5 billion in five years will undoubtedly be pared back in the coming weeks as analysts revisit their numbers. (Those numbers are from August—eMarketer).
The writing is already on the wall. YouTube is resorting to selling off video search results to the sexiest bidder and just today announced that it is extending overlay ads in YouTube Partner videos to embedded videos on other sites (previously these would only show up on YouTube itself). It is pulling out all the stops to try to get those revenues flowing. Meanwhile, smaller video startups such as Veoh and Revsion3 have already cut back on staff and shows in order to survive. More
One Comment on “Online Video: Where’s The Money?”
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It was interesting that they did not mention Hulu and how it is doing quite well with professional content.
The full article is correct though - an online-video-only play is risky except for “those that have attracted desirable audience niches that the bigger companies lack.”
The strength is the audience, not the online video. The biggest winners will be those that can do more with the audience than just stream video with ads to them.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:53 pm