SpectatorBytes

The online video revolution has certainly been on its way for quite some time now. YouTube’s skyrocketing audience numbers and overall video streams statistics from the Web indicate that video has become a core element of the Web experience. This trend will expect to continue as increasing number of traditional and new video content producers are embracing the Web as a key distribution channel.
Given this video phenomenon, it has been surprising to me that the Web still appears to have separate incarnations: “text” Web and a “video” Web. This is probably a reflection of how the traditional world is divided producers of text content (e.g., newspapers and magazines) and video producers (e.g., TV networks, film studios).

The Web, however, is a medium that enables the marriage of both worlds. The Web is poised to be the first truly multi-media platform (e.g., images, audio, text). Newspaper sites and some magazines appear to be embracing this trend. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are increasingly incorporating video as part of their offering. Another good example is Las Vegas Sun (Check out their cool high def video player).

Interesting enough, bloggers (as well as most Web sites) have been less aggressive in embracing video as part of their offering. Most blogs add a video from time to time as part of their offering. Part of the reason for this lack of video in blogs is that videos while engaging do not generate revenues for bloggers today. So, any time spent in producing or choosing videos from the Web for their audiences generate little (if any) revenues.
As online video monetization emerges, I would expect this to change. Bloggers and Web sites in generally will increasingly work to provide audiences with videos that engage their community of enthusiasts. The same way that bloggers curate/select interesting articles from other/3rd party sources.

Clearly, publishing platform and tools to drive video integration have to further evolve to make the process more efficient for editorial teams. Check out what Magnify.net is trying to do on this front (see here).

We know video works on the Web. We know need to figure out how to use it in conjunction with other forms of media to create unique experiences on the Web.

Update: Today Disqus announced another cool tool to integrate video into the Web ecosystem (see here)