by Carlos García Moreno-Torres

2010 has finished, and yes, this is a big deal for Online Video; for such a young thing, every turn in the calendar is, and this is a big turn in the calendar. Not only a year, but a whole decade comes to an end, and looking back we can see that each year offered milestones for video on the web: 2000 to 2005 was the prehistory of online video with some small sites mostly offering video downloads that one played locally. In 2005 Skype introduced videocalls and not yet knowing its monumental consequence, YouTube was born. In 2006 YouTube was bought by Google and by 2007 it consumed as much bandwidth as all of the Internet did in 2000. Video had already changed the whole deal of the Internet.

In 2009 the iPhone joined the party and became a major player in online video with the release of the iPhone 3GS, the first model to include a video camera, multiplying uploads to Youtube by 4 in the first week. Now, about 35 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube – in other words, there are almost 6 new years of video available only on YouTube.

But there’s online video beyond Youtube. A good example is Vimeo, a site that was actually born one year before Google’s video giant. With a different purpose, focusing on user created content, it has grown to become one of the biggest video sites, and the standard online video web platform for audiovisual creators, with a large artist user-base.

Three big online broadcasting companies (Justin.TV, UStream and LiveStream) were founded in 2007, and have continued to grow, making internet broadcasting accessible to anyone and more and more common. Websites focused on entertaining clips like Metacafe or Dailymotion have expanded non- stop following YouTube’s footsteps, and Facebook having integrated video sharing feels like centuries ago. Videochat expanded from Skype to all other major IM services (MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Gmail…), and even more traditional media companies like newspapers include videos in their online editions now, with some social-video news on their way to becoming mainstream (like the dutch zie.nl).

If we look to a different screen, the one found within our living rooms, we can see how PlayStation3, Xbox360, Netflix, Hulu, Boxee, Apple TV and, more recently, GoogleTV have been progressively half taking-over, half partnering with the traditional audiovisual industry networks to bring online video to our televisions.
But it’s not all about the platforms. Online video is maturing as fast as the technology that supports it makes possible. We’ve seen the constant increase in the resolution of video, 3D online video is a reality (as we wrote a few weeks ago), and HTML5 and the new possibilities it will bring are around the corner. With a need to rule and organize on the go, the basis for open video online (referring, by open, to both content and techology) are also in constant evolution: WebM, Wikimedia, open video databases such as the Open Images project (facilitated by the Netherlands-based Institute for Sound and Vision)…we can be sure that the next generation of online video is coming, and it will be here sooner than later.

Nevertheless, and in spite of the great growth that online video has had (and is expected to keep having), not all the stories are about success. 2010 was also the year of Chatroulette, a Russian company that allows users to randomly video-chat with other users and jump to a new random connection at any time in the exchange. It achieved great popularity, created some Internet celebrities and had some real celebrities talking about it and taking part…and after being one of the year’s big hypes…it just vanished. Today you can still visit Chatroulette, but the number of users has dropped drastically, and it’s now an internet old glory, just like Altavista or Lycos.

When looking for something more tangible than all of these proliferating platforms and formats, we find the people behind the videos, with the greatest example being the important role online video played in Obama’s presidential run in 2008 showing, for the first time, the potential and power of this media.

But what will we see in this new decade? Will online video evolve into open video practices? Will it get shaped into a new industry controlled product delivering professional content to our homes and devices? Will people still watch “Charlie bit my finger” in 2020? Or going a little further: will people still gather around a screen after a dinner to watch the latest YouTube hit?

Well, it’s impossible to tell right now, and if good news is we’ll certainly have the answer in only ten years, excellent news is that the process and the daily discovery will be amazing and exciting.
Welcome into a new era.

by Carlos García Moreno-Torres

In a time when access to information, and more specifically video, is constant and immediate, and when the new content that becomes available daily easily tops the time users could spend in a month with their sight focused on a screen, content providers have started a war for that precious treasure: the attention and time of users.

It is in this state of affairs that we see the all-mighty Apple renewing a forgotten product like AppleTV, and rumours revealing that the giant Google (also owner of YouTube, and still trying to make it a lucrative business) will release its contender for the big pie of living room online video with GoogleTV being developed together with Sony. On this battlefield it seems like there are no small players in this war…but is this true?

Other smaller companies who were creative enough to carve out some space for themselves in the market, like Boxee (soon to release Boxee Box) or Netflix, are trying to find their own ways to move their services from Mobile phones and laptops to both the big screens, and other domestic screens, that everybody has been buying and vying for.

Below, an interesting article about this subject, regarding YouTube’s quest for screen superiority:
Written by Maggie Shiels, Technology reporter for BBC News (Original article here)

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YouTube Bids for screen dominance

Can YouTube make the jump to rule the roost in the living room?
The world’s biggest video site wants to dominate every screen where
content can be viewed and created.

YouTube is already a leader online and in mobile and has firmly set
its sights on the living room.

The company charted its course during the launch of a new product
called Leanback, described by some as web video for couch potatoes.

It also unveiled upgrades for its mobile site which has over 100
million playbacks a day.

“You can start to break down the mental picture of ‘these are the
videos I watch on my computer, on my tv or on my phone,’” Hunter Walk,
director of product management told BBC News.

“Now you just say ‘these are the videos I watch and I watch them
wherever I happen to be, or whoever I happen to be with’. We are going
to have a world where people increasingly expect their content to be
available to them on anything with a screen, whether that be a
computer, a phone or a tv. That is the vision,” said Mr Walk.

‘Opportunity’

With 24 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute, YouTube is
already the world’s biggest video website.

And with Leanback, YouTube is now vying for the attention of the user
in the living room.

People watch 2 billion videos a day on YouTube
“This really is where the opportunity is biggest for YouTube right
now,” said Kuan Yong, senior product manager for Leanback.

“We are looking at five hours of tv that users are watching every day
in the US versus 15 minutes of YouTube video, so there is a huge
opportunity for us to bring YouTube into the living room and at the
same time bring some of the tv experience to YouTube.”

The technology picks out high-definition clips and automatically
serves up a constant stream of one video after another. As it learns
more about the viewers’ likes and dislikes, this diet of video becomes
more personalised.

The aim is to ensure users do not have to think about what they want
to see next or click on the website every few minutes.

“We want to remove the ‘What next?’ question for viewers,” said Mr Yong.

‘Channel of you’

Mr Walk said Leanback marked the emergence of a single channel world.

“This is about the ‘Channel of You’. You become the programmer of the
content you want to see as opposed to someone sitting in the corner of
a room that doesn’t know you. This is about knowing about your
interests to pull content to you.

Leanback is in beta and expected to launch in the autumn
“And the challenge is all about making it effortless for you to get a
stream of constant videos that are going to be interesting and
relevant and targeted at you based on what your interests are and what
your friends are watching,” said Mr Walk.

Leanback is seen as part of the company’s effort to grow from a
website into a “video operating system” that is as ubiquitous and easy
to use as television.

It is also regarded as a product that will dovetail seamlessly with
Google’s tv ambitions, which aim to change the way consumers watch
television. Back in May, the search giant announced its plans for an
internet-focused tv in partnership with Sony, Intel, Dish Network and
Logitech.

The Sony made sets are due to go on sale in the autumn.

“Whenever you think of video, YouTube wants you to think of them,” Ben
Parr, co-editor of news website Mashable.com told the BBC.

“By making video available from the smallest screen to the biggest no
matter where you are, they can succeed in that goal. Whether they can
win in the living room is the billion dollar question. It is just
unclear if people want to watch YouTube video after YouTube video
versus professionally made shows on the networks,” he said.

Mobile changes

YouTube also upgraded its mobile website to make watching video on the
move more convenient and quality driven at a time when more and more
consumers reach the internet over smartphones.

The mobile update comes amid an explosion of smartphone sales
“YouTube consumption on mobile devices has grown considerably,” said
Andrey Doronichev, mobile product manager.

“Playbacks were up 160% in 2009 over the previous year. The world is
heading mobile and we want to move with it.”

The updated site promises faster speeds along with the ability to
create playlists, designate favourite videos and receive search query
suggestions.

And with the upgrade, YouTube appeared to be aiming to steer iPhone
users away from the application that comes preinstalled on the Apple
smartphone.

In a blog post, the company said “As we make improvements to
Youtube.com, you’ll see them quickly follow on our mobile site, unlike
native apps which are not updated as frequently.”