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  • A Quick History of Web Video

    Posted on April 7th, 2009 (3)

    History of Video

    History of Web Video

    Can you recall the online video market before YouTube hit the front pages of New York Times? Most can’t even fathom what it was like before the days of YouTube, but it did exist. The problem of course was online video was simply too bleeding edge for the mainstream market before YouTube’s limelight showed consumers what was possible.

    Like all explosions in the digital market place, the affordability of computers in the consumer market alongside an increased adoption of broadband to the home increased the demand of information accessibility. Computers were not just affordable, but also more powerful; and, with increased bandwidth connections, consumers demanded richer media.

    At the same time, the abilities that opened up to the consumer with increased computing power and faster broadband would be compared to the rise of the automobile—the freedom to adventure, but this time on the digital landscape. The ethos of a participatory culture was born; a concept where consumers changed the status quo of perceived value by actively participating in value creation: making and watching videos.

    In the late nineties, online video began to take off with reports of 9 to 17% of businesses utilizing video streaming in some way; reporting that restrictions due to processing power and bandwidth were beginning to disappear. The introduction of MPEG-4 in 1998, and its industry standardization in 2000 paved the way for streaming video adoption, or progressive downloading (now utilizing the H.264 codec for highest quality video at lower bitrates).

    For video growth to really take hold of the mainstream, client-side browser compatibility for video playback was an issue. The answer came from Adobe Systems’ Flash software, which was being bundled with every major browser. Flash used to be used for web animation; when it could handle high quality video playback, its market share in browser compatibility quickly made it the first choice in online video playback. Currently, Adobe markets that Flash is installed on 95% of computers.

    With startups like Guba and Metacafe already carving out a market for online video to the participatory culture as well garnering major studio distribution deals, Google Video came into the market in 2005 alongside YouTube; yet within a few months, Google purchased YouTube in 2006. Since then, YouTube has become the third largest trafficked site on the web. Total video views have gone from 14.2 billion annually in 2004 to 14.3 billion in just a month during 2008 across all video sites.

    It’s now 2009, and companies are still attempting to figure out a proficient solution to monetize video. Between 2004 and 2007, companies like Brightcove, Vimeo, Kaltura and Ooyala came to market thinking they’ve solved it. But have they really figured out?

    It’s speculated that YouTube is set to lose 420 million dollars despite a 20% increase in annual revenue; the rise in infrastructure cost to handle YouTube’s success is a bludgeoning reality that current business models aren’t working as they should. Which begs the question: is there something better?

    • 1990s: Web video is being developed but too bleeding edge for mainstream.
    • 1990s: The shapers emerge with QuickTime, Windows Media Player, RealNetworks.
    • 1998: Startup Guba brings web video to early adopters.
    • 1998-2000: MPEG-4 is standardized video format for web video (latest codec is H.264 in 2008).
    • 2003: Metacafe enters the growing video market.
    • 2004: 14.2 billion views of video during this year.
    • 2004: Brightcove, Vimeo open their doors.
    • 2005: Adobe buys Flash from Macromedia; Video playback utilizing Flash takes off.
    • 2005: Google Video joins the market along with YouTube utilizing Flash.
    • 2006: Google stops investing in Google Video, buys YouTube.
    • 2006-2007: Kaltura and Ooyala launch.
    • 2008: 14.3 billion views of video during a typical month.
    • 2008-2009: The rise of cloud computing to host and scale video content.
    • 2009: Speculated 420 million USD deficit for YouTube due to ownership of infrastructure.
    • 2009: Quick.tv launches Video-as-a-Service to make video interactive.

    One Response to "A Quick History of Web Video"

    Dave

    Although your timeline has some key points in it, it is missing an important player in the time period between 2000 and 2003; Athletic Motion Inc. As a co-founder of AMI, our small team deployed an innovative UI (based on Flash and Quicktime) to deploy a network of instructional action sports video in six sports; skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, climbing and BMX. In addition to the hundreds of clips we created, we also deployed the same technology platform allowing our viewers from around the world to upload their own clips where they could be rated, commented upon and shared with friends. Sound familiar? Yep. YouTube rolled out a similar (albeit expanded) offering almost four years later. Here is my salute to the innovators, the ones not afraid to dance upon the razor’s edge and have spilled their blood in the pursuit of the new. Thanks to Mike, Lisa, Bill, Aprille, Josh, Marci, Rick, Bryan and VenGlobal. RIP Athletic Motion Inc. 1999 – 2002. Killed by the fear of 9/11.

    April 7th, 2009

    Alexander Horré

    Dave,

    Thanks for the great reply. In writing this post, there frankly were too many startups (I include SMEs in this generalization) in the long tail of web video commerce to mention them all. With carefully chosen wordage, I attempted to address the fact that others where involved before YouTube, but only dropped names from those that consistently landed in articles and blog posts I could find throughout the web (white paper abstracts, Google Scholar, and points of reference I already knew of).

    In the following sentence, “With startups like Guba and Metacafe already carving out a market for online video to the participatory culture as well garnering major studio distribution deals, Google Video came into the market in 2005 alongside YouTube…” I attempted to signify that many companies came before YouTube, but it was YouTube that indeed throttled the paradigm shift in web video consumption, making the market for web video what it is today.

    Thanks for taking the time to post, It’s well appreciated.

    Alexander Horré
    Quick.tv

    April 7th, 2009

    quicktv

    Our latest blog article: “A Quick History of Web Video” – http://bit.ly/4jeSWK Have we missed anything?

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    April 7th, 2009

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