Here's the wish list features I gathered after many overseas conference with vloggers all around the world: the next step into vlogging. Here they are, spiced up by our own ideas:

Resources center - Tons of resources about the vlogging movers and shakers

As we speak, there seems to be lacking that kind of 2.0 love from the blogging world. Vlogs platforms offer very little synergy, poor use/linkage to free other vlogging resources and functionalities. This definitely needs more love and community infiltration!

Shopping center - A place where you can buy products branded with the website name.

Get real! We need a boutique. What happens if I want my Youtube t-shirt? This can dramatically increase brand awareness and create a buzz around your site by offering giveaways and exclusive branded products from the site, as well as selling them with limited quantity. Branding get acknowledged by kids early on, and advertisers can cash on that for years to follow. Don't wonder why you feel every TV ads seem to have been built for an 8 years old kid... it didn't seem to... it was.

Help center - A place where even my mom could learn to use its account.

Google is one of the few companies who succeeded in giving simple and detailed explanations about their products and how to use them. For this kind of platform, it is ESSENTIAL that it is accessible to all ages. To ensure that, you need to give graphic + text oriented explanations and offer outstanding support to continually improve the quality of your documentation.

Statistics - This should be free. Why should we have to pay to know how the web emerge?

I know, I know, data is worth money. Data is competitive intelligence, data helps you win over your competitors if you use it well. I think we have come to a point where this is over. I am sick of guessing audience of websites, I am sick of paying 80k / year (actually, I don't!) to comScore for detailed statistics about who are the movers and shakers in the industry. Imagine the overall benefit and attractive business model this would be if you would share your statistics with everyone on the planet: seo’s, marketers, the public, advertisers, the media…

Viral marketing - This need to become propaganda... now!

This is the platform of choice to do viral marketing. First, you need to be able to send your videos to any of your friends... So where are your friends? The core target audience of the vlogging industry, the youth, have all their friends on hotmail, gmail, aol, yahoo and outlook address books. You have to allow them to import those address books seamlessly. Currently, iFilm is using Plaxo to support this feature. No other platform is doing the same.
Another viral marketing tactic that requires very little effort is to offer permalinks, "Add to 2.0 platforms" with one click, etc. Those needs to be tought carefully to maximize the propaganda!

Human moderation - Quality... or quantity?

I think we are at a turning point where quality will have a bolder importance than quantity for this industry. With 4 millions (and skyrocketting) videos, organization becomes a key factor. Let's say you sit down tonite and start listening to Youtube videos, and that you consider they are 4minutes average, you're there for 16 000 000 minutes... That's more than 11 000 days non stop. Can you handle that? I think we need quality over quantity now. We need more editors. Maybe the users could contribute in some ways, like moderating the videos uploaded through their community!

Human animation - Who's running the show?

We need to feel the website is alive, that people are actually working on it for something else than moderation and maintenance. We need interactivity, we need contests, prizes, billboards, wow's and boo's, etc. And what/who brings that? Human scent! Melissa Burdon, from FutureNow, had a terrific speech about this at SES Toronto a month ago.

Usage incentive – Airmiles, anyone?

Let’s say you have advertisers on your site. Let’s say you have a boutique on your site. Let’s say you moderate 100% of videos and use the community flagging to correct your mistakes. You just have the foundation for a great incentive system. You can offer points whenever someone look at your video, and then offer prizes, giveaways or even money in exchange of your “points”. Imagine the buzz to gather the most viewers for your videos!

Branding presence - Free exposure anyone?

If you Nike and you can have your videos there for free and create buzz, why not? I think the major brands need to collaborate with those kind of platforms to help them diffuse their commercials or even build custom videos for the Internet audience. It would be terrific if the SuperBowl ads could be available for post consultation...

In my next article, I'll be trying to tie everything together: the business model, the features, the communities, and how the search engine marketers will soon be able to use that.