Checking my e-mail at home the other day, I clicked on a
message from my brother and up popped a video window. There,
on the screen, I saw my younger sibling, his wife, and their
adorable Beagle pup. I noticed my brother's recent haircut
and his new glasses, and I laughed at seeing my
sister-in-law waved the dog's hand "hello" as he wriggled in
her arms. They'd just purchased a new Compaq
computer and it came with a Web cam -- an accessory that's
grown increasingly less expensive (I got one for around $40)
and is often now included with PC packages. In fact, they're
growing so common that IDC predicts that worldwide
shipments of PC cameras will have increased 300 percent to
11 million by the end of the year. By 2004, the research
firm says, that number will grow to 44 million.
Meanwhile, excitement is arising over streaming video -- and
its potential for advertisers. But one of the big questions
has been about the cost of producing the video content that
wraps around the ads. After all, some of the most
spectacular failures in dot-com land in recent months have
been nascent streaming video content players --
Pseudo, POP.com, and DEN are three
well-known examples -- that burned out before streaming
video advertising really took hold.
Content on
the Cheap
Now, some in the Internet industry
are looking toward those increasingly ubiquitous Web cams to
solve that problem. They're looking to put advertising on
messages featuring brothers, sisters-in-law, and their
dogs. Well, not exclusively. . .
It's the latest
mutation on advertising-sponsored user-generated Web
content. First we saw discussion boards, chat, and home page
building. Now community is going audio-visual.
"We
really believe that the next killer app will be a Web cam,"
says Marise Nazzaro, co-chief operating officer of
Oediv, a Los Angeles-based start-up developing
broadband video applications (whose name was derived from
spelling video backwards).
While there may be some dough
in tacking commercials onto videos sent via e-mail by
friends and family members, the real opportunities,
according to the players in this nascent space, are in
video-enabled communities. Rather than just publishing home
pages, or participating in chat rooms, individuals can
create personal videos about the subject areas they are
interested in.
Meanwhile, the advertisements can be
targeted to match that particular subject area. Say, for
example, I am such a fan of Christina Aguilera that I
video myself lip synching "Genie in a Bottle." Anyway, I
could put this video up on my personal Christina fan page,
and the ads could tout similar teen-oriented
products. Sellers on eBay could produce videos about
the products they are selling, as well, and the ads could
reflect the page on which the links appear. Or the
commercial on eBay could be for UPS, because you know that
the viewers are likely to use shipping services.
These
published videos, after all, are likely to get significantly
more views than one I e-mail to my brother (unless I'm lip
synching Christina Aguilera, in which case he'll forward it
to everyone he knows so they can share a laugh).
Taking Community to the Next Level
That
publishing model is why another video technology start-up,
New York-based iClips, has been busy striking deals
with community sites like The Globe.com and
Homestead.com. These deals basically allow members of
these community sites to produce and post streaming video
(in the Real Player format) on their Web pages. If you've
ever tried to produce, digitize, and offer streaming video
yourself, you'll realize that the ease with which iClips
allows users to do this belies the complicated process that
lies beneath. For the user, though, it's simple. Press
record, press stop, and then add the video to your Web site.
The process is similar on a new site launched a few
weeks ago by Oediv. It's called Vidville, and it's
basically a forum for people to sound off on whatever
subject they're interested in. Politics, television, film,
sports, or whatever floats your boat. It's there in living
breathing talking color. Instead of just mouthing off in
text, people can literally speak their peace. Although there
aren't any advertisements so far, the site is ripe for them,
and Oediv is partnering with iBoost.com, a fellow
Softbank portfolio company, to sell banners on the
pop up video screens.
So far, this concept is novel, and
people will click just to see what lies behind door number
two. But whether they'll keep clicking or not will depend on
whether the content is consistently compelling. When it
comes to mom-and-pop stuff... well, I'll click on something
my brother sends me no matter how boring it may be. But
something that just gets one or two views probably isn't
worth it advertising-wise, and the volume on community sites
just doesn't exist right now.
Still, it's not like
iClips and Oediv are burning through dough at the rate of,
say, DEN or Pseudo. "We're not spending millions of dollars
on content," says Michael Diamant, iClips' chief
executive officer. "We're not a content company, we're a
platform." So, in the meantime, while the advertising
opportunities shake out, the two firms are looking to
license their technology to corporations and other
users. "The advertising model is sort of a longer-term
model," said Diamant. "We need to look at other ways to
generate revenue and we were doing that. But there will
come a time when Web cams will be as common as speakers
are." And marketers, of course, will be there to seize the
opportunity.
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