Brad Webb, vSocial's wunderkind CTO, and I were kicking around metaphors that frame the "WHY" behind the meteoric rise of our video clip sharing service, which has gone from zero to 26M monthly page views and 120K+ unique visitors a day in a little over two months.
Then Brad nailed it, asserting that a video clip sharing network is akin to the "virtual water cooler," a space where like minds can connect for short conversations driven by short bits of content in much the same way people gather around the water cooler where they work to talk about this program or that.
More on the virtual water cooler in a bit. First, a disclaimer. As an entrepreneur and investor, I really believe that my unfair advantage is predicated on being driven by a well-formed thesis that shapes operational strategy. As a result, "metaphorical framing" is not mere window dressing to me. Rather, it drives the way that I think about the "jobs" consumers "hire" our software for to facilitate a specific set of outcomes they aspire to while reconciling the real-world constraints that they face.
Along these lines, I would argue that video clip sharing represents a kind of "perfect storm," resulting from the right the macro trend meeting the right application model performing the right job in a manner that overcomes the key constraints to completing the job.
Okay, that is a mouthful, so let me explain each point. Point one is that the macro trend of user-generated content has created an environment where tens of millions of people have become content producers, mostly in the form of community pages and blogs. This, in turn, has given rise to an unlimited supply of this content to host video and music clips, which satisfies user demands for quick, easy and meaningful ways to customize these pages. The emergence of MySpace is the best known example of this trend in action, but there are literally hundreds of companies in the space.
Two is that video clip sharing is the right application model for today's multi-device, mobility driven world since the same clip can run without modification on a PC, a blog, within an iPod and a mobile telephony device. The fact that video content can move in such a friction free manner makes it trend towards viral-ness, which is a recipe for ubiquity.
Three is that given the above attributes, video clip sharing lends itself to both social networking and viral marketing jobs. The former becomes self evident after watching a few clips listed as "favorites" by a fellow video clip sharer. If their favorites sync up with yours, you pretty instantly feel a "like minds" affinity with the sharer. The opposite is also true. :-)
To frame this one, I was at a meeting last week at one of the top three online "gorillas," and one of the first things my counterpart stated was his enthusiasm to meet with me. Why? Because it was obvious from checking out my clips that we had the same sense of humor.
The viral marketing job-readiness of video clip sharing becomes clear when you consider how "long tail" producers, like local bands, are using vSocial to connect with and grow their audience. For example, one band, called Broadzilla, has generated 500K+ plays of their video in five weeks. Needless to say, that changes the equation in terms of marketing strategy for the little guy.
Finally, one of the constraints a video clip sharing network overcomes for its users is the "upload problem." In general, the upload problem speaks to the fact that there are far more people motivated to watch, talk about and share video content than are comfortable actually dealing with the complexities of creating, capturing and uploading it.
Because a video clip sharing network makes it easy for non-uploaders to work with all of the shared video content on the network – not just their own – the network is a hospitable place for uploaders and non-uploaders alike. This makes it very conducive to mavens, connectors and salespeople (as espoused in "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell) working their magic in spreading new ideas very rapidly.
Okay, so perfect storm, but what have we (vSocial) done right to ensure that the winds of this storm carry us aloft versus crashing us into the side of a building? Beyond ensuring that this stuff just works in a brain-dead, easy to use fashion, we have focused really hard on providing web based tools that enable our users to actually "do something" with their favorite clips.
This includes tools for blogging about videos and something called a video roll that enables consumers to "program" their favorite compilations within a mini player that can be embedded in a blog or community page, and clicking "play all videos" plays the whole reel. Think: video roll of clips on how the Iraq war went wrong, video roll of clips tagged "commercial" etc. I have provided an example below created using random videos from one of our users, Tay TV.
Which brings me back to where I started, the virtual water cooler. A service like vSocial provides both a staging ground for the video content and a systematic way of connecting the dots between remote users across the web. Then it makes these linkages actionable by enabling users to do things like add a rating or attach a contextual tag like "funny" to a clip. In addition, they can write a comment or respond to someone else’s comment, or blog about it using Blog It! Finally, they can grab the video for their own blog or community page, email it, or download into their iPod. Needless to say, all of these actions extend the reach of the content, and increase its relevance to the consumer.
One example of the water cooler in action is fans of Fox's Family Guy have uploaded and played one seemingly innocuous thirty second clip over 1.7M times in a month and a half. To me that is a jaw-dropping large number. Could Fox even buy that type of mindshare and attention with its target audience if it wanted to? How many viewers of the clip decided to TiVo the Family Guy as a result (I know that I did)?
And oh by the way, the most popular landing spot for such content? Fox's MySpace, which to me suggests that the net gain for savvy media players (like News Corporation, which owns Fox) is real.
After all, brand owners, be they content, product, service or distribution channel oriented, live in an age of where consumers are smart, connected, opinionated, and increasingly, there are systematic ways for them to broadcast and share their opinions with like minds. Smart media brands, for example, will see the virtual water cooler as a great way to build loyal audiences, and provide consumers access to the "kindling wood" needed to promote lots of conversations about their programs.
In its role as the virtual water cooler, video clip sharing networks is the next wave in conversational marketing, given its reach, relevance and ROI proposition in cultivating and converting a target audience into evangelical customers.
This weekend I was ruminating a bit on the entrepreneurial game. 
