Is it possible to make money on Online Video?

Turning out to be a great panel tonight at Ultra Light Startups At Your Imagination on W. 27th Street.

Even as I smell the “sweet” aroma of Pizza just arriving I’m think about just how happening our New York Tech Community is.

I’m enjoying hearing many of the one minute pitches, which seem better than what I’ve heard, overall, in previous months when I’ve attended ULS.

That reminds me, I’ve thought about what makes a successful business, startup or established brand, and I’ve come to believe the answer is tied to amplifying, simplifying and organizing existing primal needs.

Almost any new businesses I’ve seen is based on something we already do (Flicker, organize, post, share photos; PayPal, move cash easily; FreshDirect, deliver groceries of great food, ETC
).

A really good panel (see ultralightstartups but since I’m on my iPhone, I can’t type the names easily.

Zak – landscape of online video change in last 3 years. Level of interest and specific content that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Lady from ComScore – how to translate video streams into something meaningful for Metrics

fYi – success depends on 6 factors, advertising, sponsership, merchendizing, subscriptions and pay for view and custom content. But not everyonce can do it.

Monetizing online video using methods of television doesn’t work out, better to increase value of each interaction.

Video Standard Metrics (how is a view measured?) but much of the structure to monetize is based on laziness and the mechinism to buy smaller isn’t yet working that well, it’s not really a Metrics problem.

How valuable is your audience? You have to put up 30K to 50K on the table for advertisers to take you content seriously, these days.

Online video viewership and relationship is based on a difference from offline and viewers want to tell you what they want and content providers produce it. That’s much different than how content had been produced and sold till now.

Are people content creators or advertisers? Content may be sitting in several different buckets.

The idea of “eyeballs” is becoming useless as consumers multi task and hardly anyone is going to give undivided attention, therefore, the returns from TV Ads are rapidly dimishing.

How do you define engagement? Content placed on sites related to the content and visitors spend time watching.

Bootstrapped Video Content – there are a few people who make 100K a month by achieving “scale”. However, smaller niche online video shows can be successful if the niche audience is considered valuable to advertisers.

Is it that we’re too early on in this to monetize online videos?

Based on the audience, hardly anyone in the audience left after the intermission and pizza, it’s obvious people are captivated by online video.

And now, I’m sitting and at the Dewey Flaterion bar with my friends hatching a new and exciting project, more, later.