For our 2nd “State of the Vlogosphere” (see 1st State from March 2007 here), in addition to some of the “where are the video blogs?” questions, we wanted to look into the following trends:

• Why are video producers setting up their own sites? How are they using sites like YouTube?
• What is mainstream media doing in the vlogosphere?

Where are the video blogs?

According to the data collected by Mefeedia, video blogs are at:

Key Trends since March 2007:

• YouTube down: the percentage dipped from 11.1% to 9%. Fewer vloggers on YouTube? No, just an increased amount of vloggers on YouTube appear to also be setting up their own video blogs via blogging platforms, thus causing an overall decrease in the YouTube percentages.
• Independent Websites up: increased market share from 56.9% to 61%. More and more producers are going independent and trying to attract audiences from a variety of different video sharing sites.
• Blip.tv up: the popular videoblogging hosting platform, increased from 11.6% to 14%.

The shift to creating your own video blog and using more content-creator-friendly services such as Blip.tv and Wordpress’ “Show in a Box” should not be a surprise, particularly for content creators looking to produce online video as a business. Your own video blog site allows you to set the terms of what, when and how people view your work and gives the content creator the ability to monetize through advertising and sponsorship. Of course, to attract an audience, YouTube and other video hosting sites are great places to post content that promotes the creator’s own website. This enables video producers to capture an audience and try to draw that audience to their own website.

The other benefit to video producers is branding and ownership. As Jay Dedham, a videoblogging pioneer and vlogger at RyanIsHungry.com explains “Having my own blog allows me to control the context of my videos. Ownership is clearly mine. I can learn to interact with my viewing community since i have full control over my site. You can’t do these things on sites like Youtube.”

Mainstream Media and the Vlogosphere

NBC, ABC, CBS, Sony, Fox – mainstream media has been entering the vlogosphere in many ways over the past several months. What are all of the mainistream media players doing with the new low-cost distribution methods and “hip, cool” online video audience? Since our last “State of the Vlogosphere”, there have been a lot of announcements made - here are a few highlights:

• NBC and Fox announced a Joint Venture to compete against YouTube. The new site will feature licenses content from NBC and Fox libraries.
• CBS Interactive has launched toe “Interactive Audience Network” which will push out CBS content across many websites rather than forcing people to come to CBS.com.
• CBS Interactive also acquired the business video blog Wallstrip, meaning that mainstream media is also looking into the “cool, hip” content and the web producers who understand the importance of web syndication.
• NBC continues to output “webisodes” (web episodes - why not just call it a video blog!) through The Office and other web episodes of their shows.
• Grouper, a video sharing site acquired by Sony Pictures a year ago, recently renamed itself to Crackle and launched an original content discovery site. The site will feature quartlerly contests to pitch Sony executives with the promise of cash prizes and the possibility to land a TV pilot through Sony Pictures Television.
• MySpace announced that it is teaming with the FOX network and the Producers Guild of America to seek out television pilots through the “Storyteller Challenge“. The partnership could provide a shortcut straight to TV.
• Sony Pictures Television and MySpace launched their minisode network, which includes everything from the original Fantasy Island to The Partridge Family into shortened six minute clips.

These trends point to an important trend: the difference between a Web Show and a TV Show is becoming less distinct. As Mike Hudack of Blip.tv explains “an inflection point is coming up where these two converge.” Soon in the future, we won’t be talking about a “TV Show” and a “Web Show”, we will just be talking about a “Show”.

Clearly, sites like Mefeedia are important as online video explodes onto more and more indie video sites, video hosting sites such as YouTube and MySpace, and mainstream media video series such the minisode network and NBC webisodes. Consumers will need easy tools to discovery and collect great video from any site and any platform, and be able to watch that video on any device, TV, and player they want to.

Vlogosphere Statistics

Methodology

Since 2004, Mefeedia has been collecting data on video blogs. We collect this data in an objective, fair manner from video feeds throughout the internet. Any video blog can be included in Mefeedia’s Directory by providing a adding a MediaRSS feed to our directory.

About Mefeedia

Mefeedia is a social discovery site for online episodic video. Mefeedia brings together video feeds from any video site and any platform, allowing you to create a personal channel of video from these feeds, which can then be watched on Mefeedia, in iTunes or other media player, on your mobile device, or anywhere you would like. More about us.

See more in:online video, state of the vlogosphere, trends, videoblogs

Since 2004, Mefeedia has been the leader in tracking video blogs through our proprietary database and collection techniques. That is why we have started this Quarterly State of the VLogosphere report. This is the first one!

We are constantly asked and quoted on “how many videoblogs are there?” and “where exactly is the vlogosphere?”. Here are some key insights into the VLogosphere. For more in-depth statistics or for questions, please contact Frank - frank@mefeedia.com

Top 10 – Where are the Videoblogs?
According to the data collected by Mefeedia, videoblogs are at:

It’s Not Just YouTube
Videobloggers are an independent bunch. Whereas “Viral Video” has seen a tremendous movement of market share to YouTube (43.3% according to a NewTeeVee comparison on Compete.com), videoblogging content – “Episodic Video” – has generally remained independent. In our opinion, this is mainly due to the independent nature of videobloggers and the desire to give users a choice on how and where viewers can watch their videos. Viewer choice is key. Many videoblogs such as Rocketboom and Galacticast now offer episodes in a variety of different formats for many devices.

Videobloggers do use YouTube and other video sharing sites. But a lot of the time, a videoblogger will post a few videos to a video sharing site in the hopes of attracting an audience (and subscribers) to their show’s website. The power remains with the videoblogger – the videoblogger can create and distribute episodic video to whomever they choose. That is why a lot of videobloggers choose to post on open source or independent platforms - Worldpress, Blogspot, or others - and distribute to videoblogger-friendly sites like Mefeedia, where viewers can easily connect and collaborate with the content creators themselves.

Growth of Videoblogging
Videoblogging has seen tremendous growth over the past several years. The trend towards Episodic Video has really started taking off recently:

Of course, statistics are only part of the story in videoblogging. Videoblogging has really been about community and connecting people. That connection between viewers and videobloggers, and between videobloggers themselves, has been invaluable in creating some of the most unique, independent episodic videos online.

The Future
The vlogosphere has started garnering attention from Hollywood. In January, Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine of “Ask a Ninja” signed a deal with Federated Media. It looks like 2007 is going to be an interesting year where “micro media” meets “big media”, or at least they will be talking. From several conversations we have had, it seems that Hollywood is still trying to figure it out. It is a tremendous leap to go from a handful of shows with viewers in the millions to hundreds of shows with viewers in the thousands.

Methodology
Mefeedia collects data on videoblogs in an objective, fair manner from video feeds throughout the internet. Any videoblog can be included in Mefeedia’s Directory by providing a adding a MediaRSS feed to our directory.

Questions? Contact us at:

Frank Sinton
frank@mefeedia.com
310-927-7841

See more in:state of the vlogosphere, videoblogs