Opinion: There's a whole huge demographic of older Web users (like, you know, older than 18...duh!) who want video content that speaks to them.The
Motley Fool
reports that
CNet is about to start up their own "YouTube-like" video service as a
new part of their Webshots.com picture sharing site. Most of the content is
going to be user-submitted, but considering that CNet has also been moving
forward with a lot of video content on their own and the techie nature of CNet
readers themselves, there's no doubt that the content's probably going to be a
lot more tech-oriented than the usual YouTube webcam/college
prank/pratfall/grossout/Colbert Report fare.
Overall,
their move into online user-contributed content probably isn't all that big a
deal on its own, but when you look at what it means in the larger world of the
Web, it may very well be. Why? Because if CNet succeeds in creating a more
techie-oriented YouTube, they may very well be able to start siphoning off
traffic from the skyrocketing King of Online Video
and open up the Long Tail of video on the Web by
opening the way to more niche video content.
If
you've ever searched for specific video content on YouTube or Google Video, you
know that finding something you're actually looking for is really an exercise
in serendipity. On YouTube there's no good way to search (or browse, for that
matter) for anything specific outside of browsing categories. Google's Video
service does a slightly better job by allowing users to filter content by
length, price, or search relevance (as well as with tag-like labels) but the
results are far from optimal. Don't believe me? Go promise a two-year-old that
you're going to pull up some cartoons on your computer and start
searching...but that's actually a longer and more horrifying storying than we
have time for here.
Overall,
while the online video market is growing like crazy (accompanied by strong
growth in the broadband market),up until recently the most
popular online video sites have been oriented to mass youth markets, primarily
young males.
But as online video surges and more people get used to getting their daily
video clips via these services, there's going to be an ever-expanding market
for niche video sites that don't cater to adolescent tastes. In fact, I'd go as
far as to say that the achilles heel (from a marketing and revenue standpoint)
of these sites is that they're so focused (and will continue to be focused due
to the Network Effect so
prevalent in social networking sites) on the youth market. There's a whole huge
demographic of older Web users (like, you know, older than 18...duh!) who want
video content that speaks to them.
Besides
what CNet is doing, it'll be interesting to watch sites like VideoJug.com, a DIY/how-to video site that's seen faster growth
than YouTube in it's early days
and TurnHere, a "local experience film
site" that shows some pretty decent traffic numbers.
None of these sites might reach the stratospheric numbers YouTube's gathered,
but they don't have to...they can own their niche's in the long tail and
dominate their own piece of the Web.
And
that's the advice to take from this: specialization is the way to go when it
comes to developing new online video sites. Like the big guys dominate the kid
market and the "me too's" try to break into the big time.
Specialization and differentiation is where the real fortunes are to be made.
Oh,
and one final note: if you want to keep tabs on what's going on in the niche
video world, bookmark Xeep's Video on the Net blog for
the best in new niche video sites.
Online Media 
