By Paul D Hamm
I my previous post, I wrote about Consumer adoption of Internet TV and how it has contributed to the development of online communities around video. Today, I want to discuss how new technologies make it easy and affordable for content owners to reach their audiences online and build social communities around their web video.
Technology is now readily available – and affordable – to manage, distribute and monetize broadband-delivered content. And because so many people are watching video online, content producers and broadcasters alike can easily reach wider audiences and then use available tools to engage people and promote interaction, both of which means more money for your content.
Yes, the technology to deliver a high-quality experience to PCs, mobile phones and TVs through broadband (IPTV) has been a reality for a few years now. However, the means to do so haven’t been readily available and affordable for all content producers.
If you want to launch an online video, social media, mobile video and/or IPTV service, your choices are generally limited to a few strategies. You can build it yourself. However, such an initiative will require a significant investment of capital, time and IT resources – and the pay-off is not always positive. You can distribute your content through existing social networks, video sharing sites and content aggregators and hope to get some shared ad revenue (raise your hand if you’re actually generating a profitable business plan this way… anyone?). You can have your webmaster piece together a content delivery strategy using open-source, free or cheap applications (But then, what happens when you are faced with a real challenge or needprofessional help?). Or, you can use a hosted platform-as-a-service model, which has traditionally been pretty expensive or inadequate.
However, times they are a changin’!.. There are now a good handful of companies that provide very robust content delivery platforms at affordable prices. These online video platforms can truly enable end-to-end delivery of live and on-demand content to multiple destinations. They can provide you with various video management, distribution and monetization options. Some of them will even allow you to build interactive communities around your content by integrating your online video portal with a branded social network and viral video (I can think of one I would recommend). These platforms provide content owners with all the necessary tools to build profitable businesses around professionally-produced online video leaving no excuse to why you shouldn’t be streaming video online if you have commercial-ready content, brand and audience.
Look out for my next blog post on online video Monetization Models available to content producers today!
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