The Long Tail Of Online Video: Helping People Conquer The Obvious
from the wash-rinse-repeat dept
Google's billion-dollar ($1.65 billion, rather) buyout of YouTube emphasized the fervent interest in online video. But it doesn't end with huge sites like YouTube: a raft of sites are apparently spouting up and becoming quite popular by giving people how-to videos on topics far and wide -- like how to take a shower. And of course, most of it is user-generated: the lesson in showering comes courtesy of a 79-year-old Maryland man, who says "When you get to be 79, you've learned some things that other people don't know," like the value of transparent shower curtains over opaque ones. How-to articles have always been popular online, so it's not particularly surprising to see them make the jump to video. But sites chasing this market and hoping to make a business out of it will have a hard time competing against the likes of YouTube -- just like other vertically oriented video sites. Obviously YouTube isn't limited to videos of a particular genre, and the fact that videos can be embedded in web pages and easily shared means that somebody doesn't need to create their own video-sharing site to create a web site about how-to videos.
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Is YouTube making money?
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Online video helping companies conquer the non-obv
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hmm
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That's my concern, too, Lucas
I guess it's time for the wait-and-see game to see how Google derives their R.O.I. from this purchase.
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To hazard a guess...
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shower curtains
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Re: That's my concern, too, Lucas
To me, advertising (and perhaps in part, Google's success) is always about basic politeness -- people usually don't mind a few relevant suggestions about things they might be interested in, but don't yell at them -- it just makes them want to not buy your product. As the poster above states, if your content's pretty good, a few ads are pretty tolerable.
One other question I have with the YouTube purchase though: where does this leave Google Video?
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Re:
Hence the blue underlined thing called a "link" to exactly that story.
As with all posts on Techdirt, we add our thoughts to articles elsewhere, and we credit them with a link.
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Question is HOW Does Google Use Level3 on YouTube
skibare
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