An article on Ad age today spoke about Amazon entering YouTubes area of short form video content.
http://adage.com/article/digital/amazon-courting-youtube-networks-short-video-push/244700/
I would like to discuss the implication for Video producers and the possibility of success.
For video producers, this can only be seen as a good thing. As discussed in class this week, the great frustration with people who make a living from YouTube videos is the high slice that YouTube takes of any revenue. Creating more channels that people can distribute on can only be a good thing, as this competition is bound to lower prices. But, for this competition to be valuable, it must be a legitimate new channel - is this feasible with the well known network effects of short online video?
I believe that it is possible to have another channel that competes in the shortform video market. The network effects that made YouTube such an incredible business early on (more videos brought more viewers, which incentivised more videos) have a limit - currently there is too much video being created and uploaded to ever watch, meaning that it should not be difficult to get video footage - there is also no cost to uploading it onto various platforms. This leaves viewer numbers - a challenge, for sure, but if anyone has the firepower to spend enough on advertising to eventually build a critical mass of viewers, its amazon. Amazon just needs to do the maths on whether this is an investment worth making. For the sake of video producers, I hope they decide that it is.
http://adage.com/article/digital/amazon-courting-youtube-networks-short-video-push/244700/
I would like to discuss the implication for Video producers and the possibility of success.
For video producers, this can only be seen as a good thing. As discussed in class this week, the great frustration with people who make a living from YouTube videos is the high slice that YouTube takes of any revenue. Creating more channels that people can distribute on can only be a good thing, as this competition is bound to lower prices. But, for this competition to be valuable, it must be a legitimate new channel - is this feasible with the well known network effects of short online video?
I believe that it is possible to have another channel that competes in the shortform video market. The network effects that made YouTube such an incredible business early on (more videos brought more viewers, which incentivised more videos) have a limit - currently there is too much video being created and uploaded to ever watch, meaning that it should not be difficult to get video footage - there is also no cost to uploading it onto various platforms. This leaves viewer numbers - a challenge, for sure, but if anyone has the firepower to spend enough on advertising to eventually build a critical mass of viewers, its amazon. Amazon just needs to do the maths on whether this is an investment worth making. For the sake of video producers, I hope they decide that it is.
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