Ask anyone in the online revenue space for their top 5 picks for things to watch for in 2008, and online video will be in the majority of people's responses. It is easy to see why that is the case:

1. Video is seen as the "next step" of web content creation evolution

2. Video is sexier than text or static images.

3. Video is compelling and offers the pivotal "call to action" in a much more human way than text, images or flashing "shoot the duck" flash banners.

4. Video is getting cheaper and cheaper to create, edit, publish and spread.

5. We all want video on the web to work because it reminds us of television.

And #5 is where the problem sets in... is video really "the next big thing" for online marketers and advertisers or is online video circumscribed by its offline twin in terms of monetization strategies. In other words, can online video break the mold that offline video and television has created (and thrived in)?  Is there a place for performance marketing in online video monetization strategies or will sponsorships and cpm carry the day as has been the case in offline video?

Scott Karp offers up some thoughts in a post entitled "How Google Will Monetize YouTube Without User Generated Content:"

Never mind the buzzwords like partner, revenue sharing, and of course
user-generated content (which is now further revealed as a myth)
-- if you reframe it, as I did above, you realize that this is actually
the traditional media business. Great content attracts an audience that
is attractive to advertisers. Content producers are compensated by the
media company for their work...

YouTube has become a place where great content can be found and
attract a sizable audience, which is still, despite all the disruption
of media, a good business.

But here's the secret of why YouTube is likely to continue to
attract an audience for the "talent-generated content," even after all
(or most) of the copyrighted content has been purged -- and why Goolge
bought YouTube.

When people come to YouTube to find copyrighted content, how do they
find it? That's right -- search. For millions of people, YouTube is the
go to place to search for video content. As long as people keep coming
to YouTube to search for videos, the monetizable talent-generated
content will be able to scale."

So, according to Karp, YouTube and its ilk of user submitted video platforms will be monetized by search advertising (in the case of YouTube) or sponsorships in the case of "talent-generated content."  Content such as Gary Vaynerchuk's WineLibraryTV and Ze Frank's much-loved and much-missed (by me at least) The Show could certainly be considered in the "talented" realm and found money in sponsorships and personal brand building.

However, with new talent, such as PhillyD.tv (very funny video blog hosted primarily on YouTube) getting hundreds of thousands of views a week, we have to wonder how these content creators will be able to monetize their work, because the future of online video monetization is being constructed around these early break-away talents.  The paradigms and metrics being created now will help to shape the online marketing industry in general for years to come.

So, is there a possibility for citizen or niche or casual video creators to monetize their content or are there cut off lines for video views and some form of litmus-test talent that one must cross over before they can see a return on their time investment?  Reminds me of the questions we had about text-based user generated content at the beginning of the century. 
 


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