I decided to do a small round up of various popular video services and navigate the different aspects between them that I’ve seen and where they each fit in within the ecosystem of the online video world. While there are other services that might be similar, these four I think are interesting in themselves (of course, YouTube) because of the type of concepts that go behind their business models.
YouTube obviously is the largest video network online. It has really evolved from the vlogger platform and copyright content filled apparatus to possibly the major power house when it comes to video (and audio content to a degree) online. With the aid of Google’s huge financial resources, YouTube slowly has emerged with a sense of legitimacy in the eyes of older media, even though some groups still resent them and occasionally throw a lawsuit or two towards them. A lot of the recent efforts in YouTube are aimed at continuing to pursue big media and various acts such as holding live concerts from pop artists such as Madonna to watching movies that you can purchase.
Of course, YouTube still has copyright issues where copyright owners tend to become overzealous in using tools to locate potentially infringed media. Most of that material may last a few days to weeks, depending on the search effort. Despite the hassle of having their videos taken down by such notices, many of these people who upload end up creating more anonymous accounts and re-uploading the content.
Yet, possibly the main thing about YouTube is that it still remains one of the best places to show upcoming and established new media artists as well as acting as a key platform for video companies to create dedicated video houses. Most viral videos are from YouTube, where people can show anything from silly cats to personalized versions of Social Darwinism in action. Other companies such as ehow have created their own dedicated channels in forming strategic partnerships with YouTube.
Despite all this, one thing that is slowly being eroded away are individual content creators who may have at one time found success through their videos, but now are on the losing end in a high stakes war of intense competition. While certain individuals such as Jenna Marbles, Swifty or ComicBookGirl19 maintain a certain level of success, other artists struggle in the constant changing interface, which in turn may have hurt their viewership. Add to that the high amount of garbage videos that get tossed in and people can slowly get swallowed up in all the white noise.
Now, though YouTube does have livestreaming capabilities, the average user seems to prefer the traditional, one shot video format. In that sense, YouTube for most people functions like a blogging site, where people who want to create a permanent piece of content can get the most out of the site as a producer. What I mean by “permanent piece of content” is that the video should be well thought out and have a purpose. As we will eventually see, this differs tremendously in usage compared to the other listed services.
Finally, one of the more interesting and possibly lesser known things about YouTube is the partnership aspect. While I’m not 100% certain on all categories, I did learn that for gamers, at least, you cannot become a partner since YouTube prefers that you team up Machinama instead. Unfortunately, this does present a dilemma particularly for game content producers who lack viewership and want to make money through their videos using YouTube.
Let’s move onto YouNow. YouNow is a livestreaming service which is very social and leaderboard oriented. The way it works (from what I can tell) is that people can vote on allowing people more time when they go live. Essentially, it’s a “15 minutes of fame” type of deal, except those 15 minutes are far shorter. The quality of video differs tremendously as you can see people using mobile devices to broadcast their lives.
One thing I have observed about YouNow is that there’s quite a number of young people who employ the service. When I say young, I’m estimating that quite a few of these people, from whom I’ve seen, are below the age of 20, if not in their early 20’s at most. My interpretation for this service is that it really caters to the younger crowd that are seeking instant gratification and attention. Also, I think the mechanisms are pretty harsh and somewhat American Idol-like, except that the judges can be anyone who signs up. In general, it feels as though if you can consistently entertain your followers or potential followers for as long as possible, you can succeed on this site.
Next, I want to delve into the other side of livestreaming in the form of Justin.TV and Twitch.TV. I want to focus more on Twitch.TV since I’m a heavier participant there. Twitch.TV is built off the Justin.TV platform. I’m not entirely sure if they are the same company, but at the very least, Twitch.TV’s focus is around the gaming community. There was another service similar to Twitch.TV but they went under. So pretty much Twitch.TV is becoming the de facto livestreaming gaming service.
Where YouNow, focuses on high audience participation in putting people on top, Twitch.TV allows anyone to broadcast themselves and people can easily discover various streamers under categories of games or groups. Ranking for streamers is determined simply through the number of current viewers for a given game categories. So in a form of true capitalism, the top will rise.
People can broadcast for as long or as little as they want. However, livestreaming games can be quite intense as it requires additional software to support the capture of a game. So people who have a desire to stream games like World of Warcraft not only require the software but a solid computer and network connection. Many times livestreamers will include a web camera of themselves while streaming, allowing them to interact with their audience in a very intimate setting. This allows gamers not only to show their activities in the game but show a segment of their life as well.
But going beyond the genre of games, the idea of livestreaming continuously is an interesting niche in itself. With YouTube growing saturated, services like Twitch might provide an alternative yet more satisfying medium for both fans and content producers. Also, unlike YouTube where the content producer may or may not respond to comments in a video, you have things like a chat where the interaction becomes far more responsive and can foster a better overall community.
Although the overall views might seem smaller than a YouTube, livestreams constant and long videos does offer the potential for better advertisement possibilities, thus lowering the bar when it comes to the required number of viewers consistently on a channel. With a site like Twitch focusing on a subject like games, advertisers can really home in on their audience and serve relevant ads. And viewers in turn because of the closer relationship to the channels they follow are more likely to not use AdBlocking software so the channels can receive the money they earn.
Finally, I’ll turn my attention to keek. Keek was once branded the “Twitter for video.” In short, Keek’s focus was put on having users create very short (1-2 minute) videos. This is more like a typical vlog session and there’s a lot of focus on mobile. You can easily just hit the store, for instance, and show off a product that you discover. Or perhaps if you’re driving along the freeway and something catches your attention, you could shoot it (hoping that no cop is around unless you’re the passenger). The thing is that it’s pretty easy to do.
Again like YouNow, one of the remarkable features I’ve noticed about Keek is that many of the people using it are pretty young, quite possibly similar in age to those of YouNow. I know one video producer LedaBunnie employs three of the four services (not Twitch) and is one of the hotter commodities when she broadcast on these platforms. But it’s people like her who really are the keys in the success for these sites in that they’ve managed to bring their audience from YouTube over and establish a new niche market for themselves.
What’s interesting overall is examining how each type of video service offers a distinct type of market. It’s very similar to the text based platforms of blogging, tweets, comments, etc. Again it’s all about trying to service one of these areas.