Opinion: The Web is a conduit for video content, not the final destination; iPods, PSPs and TiVo suggest a different future.If you're interested in publishing video content, things are about to get a whole lot more interesting.
In the old days, reaching a global audience with DIY video content meant posting your video to the Web in either downloadable or streaming video format. Video Weblogs existed, but if you wanted to see them you pretty much had to go to the site where they were housed.
Then came PSPcasting, a kludge that combined video compression in MP4 format for the Sony PSP with software that allowed people to "subscribe" and automatically download video.
While this method might have hinted at the potential of video blogging, it really didn't begin to come into its own until Apple released its new video iPod and new iTunes with video Podcasting support and millions of people worldwide all of a sudden had access to subscribable video content.
Video Podcasts started popping up everywhere. From the wacky Tiki Bar TV to the venerable Rocketboom, homemade video content started coming out of the woodwork.
While most of this stuff is free, video is definitely set to grow quickly over the next couple of years, with analysts predicting that the "premium Internet video services" will hit $2.9 billion by 2009.
But don't think all the action's gonna happen on the Web. In fact, it looks more and more likely that while the Internet will serve as a conduit for video content, publishers of the future are going to have consider that online video content will probably be viewed on devices other than computer screens.
One of the most interesting new developments is happening with TiVo, which recently announced that it's going to be carrying video blogs. And while TiVo has always offered different types of TiVo-only video content such as long-form commercials and other specials, this is the first time that it has linked to the Internet to pull in content and make it available in the living room on a platform on which most of us are used to viewing video content: the TV.
This is in the experimental stages now, but it's possible to see how a system like TiVo could suddenly become a platform for subscribable video content pulled in from all over the world, bypassing the networks and the cable companies. The possibilities are mindboggling.
At the same time that TiVo announced that it's going to become a new platform for Net-delivered TV, NBC has announced that it's going to start pumping "many more shows" into iTunes.
Interestingly, the president of NBC also said that the company's new venture with Apple "will be run like any television network," raising the distinct possibility that at least some of the big providers are starting to really grok the capacity of the Internet to bypass the cable networks and other old-media bottlenecks.
While cell phone mobile video still might not be ready for prime time, technological limitations and lack of solid evidence that consumers want to watch video on their cell phones isn't holding back some of the major carriers from experimenting.
HBO and Cingular plan on delivering short video to mobiles and Sprint has announced a plan to deliver full-length feature films on its PCS Vision phones.
I'm betting that these initial experiments won't change the world, but they will pave the way for better and more robust mobile video systems. In the meantime, companies like Apple with its video iPod, Creative with its Zen Vision, and Sony with its PSP will be better venues for Net-connected video content.
Creating video for portable devices is getting easier, too. Recently Neuros announced its MPEG4 Recorder 2, a nifty little box that digitizes any video source and saves it on the fly to flash memory cards. While designed specifically to help people digitize video for the PSP, this $150 box makes creating video blogs or posting existing video content a snap.
Yeah, we're still at the initial stages now and it's tempting to make overblown projections about the size of the online video market. I'm not going to do that, but if you look at the rapid development of technology, the rapid expansion of delivery vehicles, and the potential for worldwide distribution of video, the trend vector definitely points to a very interesting future.
Online Media 
