(Disclaimer: My company, vSocial, delivers a social networking for video platform called vConnect that enables content owners, portal operators and online marketing organizations to launch their own YouTube-like sites so I am both informed and biased.)
Like you, I have been watching this YouTube thing play out and the obvious question is, "What does this mean for the rest of us?" First off, let me say that the goodness of this as a viable market proof point ($1.65B) is pretty hard to argue with.
Literally overnight, every company that had looked at the online video space as a “novelty with no dollars”, the “next Napster crash and burn” or “not ready for prime time,” has to re-calculate. A major land grab has just begun.
More to the point, in a way that they did not yesterday, Google is now scary to many, many companies in the same way Microsoft was at their peak -- albeit with a bit less of the Darth Vader/Death Star complex. No more one trick pony. They are a player in social networking in addition to everything online video and their current growth engine of search advertising.
If you are in the advertising network delivery game in any way, shape or form, online video just escalated to front and center for you. If you are in the portal business, really good online video community functionality is now mission critical. It is not enough to "not suck."
If you are in the infrastructure business selling bandwidth or other hosted services, video elevates to an integral menu item. If you are in the content business, you need to get serious about how to virally brand your content or channel-ize so you can monetize it.
Lots and lots of companies are now thinking to themselves, "I need to get in the game. Is there anyway I can start on the 50 yard line instead of the 20 yard line?"
After all, Google just went from tired to inspired. I heartily applaud their willingness to swing for the fences in what is rapidly become “must see”…oh, never mind. J
