As millions of broadband subscribers who missed a wardrobe-malfunction moment on TV can attest, the internet can be a convenient resource for finding much-talked-about events on video.
Whether it's Janet Jackson's Super Bowl breast exposure or The Daily Show host Jon Stewart's explosive appearance on a political talk show, video clips of high-profile moments have sent millions of net users scrambling to search engines for footage.
But until recently, internet users who don't patronize peer-to-peer sites had few options for tracking down video content outside of entering a query in a standard search box.
Large net portals and a handful of smaller sites are looking to change that. In recent weeks, Yahoo, Google and MSN have each rolled out services designed to make it easier to upload or locate video online. The portals' rollouts come as a handful of startups and independent film sites are creating tools to make putting video online nearly as simple as publishing text.
Recently, Yahoo launched a beta version of a service called Media RSS that lets anyone with footage submit videos for distribution. Bradley Horowitz, director of multimedia and desktop search at Yahoo, said the feature is designed to provide an easy way for "mom and pop creators of video" to connect with people who might be interested in viewing their content. The RSS feature follows the December launch of a – video search engine.
This year, Yahoo is projecting that the number of videos streamed over the web will grow by nearly 50 percent from last year. Citing forecasts it commissioned from AccuStream iMedia Research, Yahoo said net users are expected to stream more than 21 billion videos in 2005, up from 14.2 billion last year.
Yahoo's video-related rollouts come as the company's arch rival, Google, is expanding in the video search arena. Google is currently running a beta version of an upload program that lets anyone submit videos electronically to its Google Video site, so long as they own the rights to the work. The company said the videos will be made available on its – video search site, but has not specified a date.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's MSN, which launched its own – video search site last fall, has been steadily beefing up its film offerings. Earlier this month, the company announced an agreement to publish videos distributed by streaming provider Ifilm.
Blair Harrison, Ifilm's CEO, says current offerings of online video represent a tiny fraction of what will be available in the next few years.
"Everyone is adding video to their sites in much the way they added Flash or other technologies to their sites a few years ago," Harrison said. As digital rights management technologies evolve, Harrison also expects Hollywood producers will be more comfortable putting TV shows and movies on the web and letting fans search for them.
Harrison expects the amount of homespun video footage available for online consumption will skyrocket next year, when handsets with built-in video cameras are nearly as widely available as still-picture camera phones are today.
Already, Harrison said, people are adding videos to dating site profiles, uploading homemade movies, and putting film snippets on social-networking sites like Myspace.com at an ever-accelerating pace. However, he believes that programs for editing video and publishing it online are not yet user-friendly enough to appeal to most internet users.
Tiffiniy Cheng, co-director of the Participatory Culture Foundation, a group that is building a tool for independent video makers to put content online, hopes to make the publishing process easier in the near future.
"We want to make uploading a video as easy as blogging," Cheng said. Participatory Culture, she said, plans to make a publishing tool integrated with the file-sharing network BitTorrent available in a few weeks.
Ifilm's Harrison also envisions strong demand shaping up for services that will help people navigate a seemingly bottomless supply of video content.
"If I'm faced with a programming universe of literally thousands of channels, it becomes effectively useless to flick through a channel lineup. People will develop guides and bookmarks to navigate from their own perspective," he said.
Harrison says it remains unclear who will provide the guides and bookmarks. The big portals, with their vast reach, are well-poised to help internet users navigate the video universe. However, it's also quite possible that a "small, smart newcomer" could take established players by surprise.
"Anyone that is 200 million members strong or more has the benefit of scale of audience," Harrison said. "But it doesn't take long to be successful if you truly have a superior offering."
