Prospects for Online Video

At some recent business conferences, various industry types addressed the potential and reality of online video. Here's some key points made by industry leaders:

• Having, or making, good content is still critical
• Replacing "contextual" videos with "personalized" videos can triple viewing (What this means is using individual interests instead of topic/context to select which videos appear on various pages)
• You need a mix of cheap and expensive videos, to keep average costs down.
• The industry needs some big advertisers to commit big dollars ($100 million) to show viability
• Monetizing distributed traffic isn't easy, but some new approaches look promising

• Figure out where your target audience is - and go after them
• Commit to building and maintaining an audience
• Let your audience help shape content.

Sources:  "What has Video Done for Us Lately?" Online Video Insider
               "Online Video: How to Break Through the Clutter and Build an Audience," Online Video Insider