In my past two articles, I've been talking about vlogs business models and its vlogs audience. In this article, I'll be covering the 2.0 features they offer... and my 2.0 vlog wish list will be in the next article. To increase my interest in analyzing this whole emerging market (after text and audio killers, we needed killer video platforms!), our company got hired to conceptualize and design a contender to the major vlogs platforms. For the exercise, I will be focusing on significant vlogs (YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Google Video) features. Here they are:
EXISTING FEATURES
Auto-Casting - Ability to record/edit yourself directly from the platform website.
Currently, only DailyMotion offers that kind of service with a flash recorder. Really simple, no editing. Some smaller vlogs offer a more complex editing system, like Jumpcut, although it (already) seems stuck in a smaller niche market to my eyes.
Monetize Videos - Sell your videos, earn money!
Google Video's been doing it for a while; Youtube, Dailymotion and Metacafe have stayed away from this feature. The major problem lies in the moderation of the videos; if you sell a Madonna video clip, I guess you know that you are somehow illegal! We need more human moderation... But when you get 35 000 uploads / day @ Youtube, you need lots of coffee and very little sleep (pssst: Rand, you should apply there!).
Exportable videos - The ability to export your videos to other 2.0 platforms.
This is a great feature and is one of the major factors that explain why Technorati is doing so well. "Press this button, close your eyes, and there you go, you now control your blog from a distance!". No platform currently offers a seamless integration with major blogs like Technorati does; you have to cut/paste a 1 liner into your own blog. This needs to change!
Community flagging / moderation - The ability for the community to auto-moderate itself.
As weird as it may be, some offer comments moderation (Metacafe), and some offer video moderation/reporting (Youtube/Dailymotion), but none offers both. Guess what: you should offer both! It's great cheap labor! Also, add moderation on Tags so we can report whoever creates some disorganization on the platform!
Communities - Presence of distinct groups within the website who share a common interest.
We've seen some tenacity in those platforms to offer some sort of community. Youtube let you joins any "community" that you are interested in, and with Dailymotion you will have to be approved by the community initiator. But heh, wait, there is not much there but some programming to link up your community favorite videos with yours. This needs creativity BADLY.
Tag Clouds - A lot of words, no semantic meaning :)
Tags are great, don't get me wrong here. But to the vast majority of Internet users, they are unknown. Someone needs to step up and explain, directly on the website, what this cloud of words is all about! Also, there has to be more control on the amount of tags allowed per video and how they moderate the meanings of those.
Filters – “I want to see that very specific kind of video... Can I?”
Categories, most viewed, best rating, most recent, pick of the day... Can we think of fresher ideas? I wish I could select a date through time, I wish I could select a country, even a city. I wish we knew the place where the scene was recorded! I wish there was a better use of the data!
"My Space" section - My personal "channel". Tune-me in!
This is where I've seen the biggest disparity; no one seems to agree on how your world should be organized. What annoyed me the most was that "My Space section" should always be visible, wherever I am on the website. Since it's my universe, why do you keep me away from it?
:) thanks sir
I think that monetizing video's is a hard part when it comes to any website type - be it blog or be it content site. Our main business are training services (SEO/M comes second) and as you might know videos are a big thing in training. However, making money out of videos as a standalone product is something only few can do... The main issue is with quality, quantity and versatility.
Quality is obious; there are videos and Videos. You have to a good storyline, good quality, editing etc. issues right on spot to get consumer intrest.
Quantity is also essential; a single video doesn't make anyone rich unless you can distribute in wide scale. Services like Youtube can help, but only to a certain limit.
Versatility; if all your videos are about same thing from different angles, then why pay more than once?
I think that lynda.com is a good example of success in this area. They target for very specific consumer markets and have good marketing. On the downside, they have issues with versatility. After you have seen the videos once, there is little reason to pay the second yearly subscription.
Another good example would be StarWreck , a finnish parody on star trek. They hit enormous success with their freely downloadable (zero budget) movie and have evolved a business model around it. On the downside, they used lots and lots of time, resources etc to make it happen...
How do you think videoblogs could avoid these issues and be more easily monetized? After all, making a good and interesting video is something that requires time and resources.
Since our project is open to the public (suggestions, comments, anything you think should be on a videoblog platform --> suggest it to me), I can say that Yodivi want the users to be paid for their energy and efforts, but accordingly. There will be some sort of a reward system, allowing you to generate points everytime someone looks at your video. With those points, you'll be able to exchange them for some goodies or certificates.
We've also been thinking about offering a "pro version" where we could create some sort of marketplace where major TV companies could go there and buy some content; any kind of amateur-pro level video they think they can use for their flicks.
I mean, as video becomes mainstream and TV/Internet merge together, what difference will there be between CNN and "John Smith Channel"? Rich is the man who can foresee this near future. We shall see.