58 Video Search companies - are any of them making money?

Video Search has been around a long time. My group at AltaVista was a pioneer in web video search back in 1996. The multi-media search technology is still in use today at Yahoo. Since then many startups and big players have entered the video search space. Are any of them making money? Are there any clear leaders?

VCs often call me for advice when they are considering investments in sectors or specific companies. I just did a meeting about the video search space. In preparation for the meeting I compiled a list, from various web sources, of companies involved in video search/sharing/tagging, and community. I was surprised to find over 50 companies, and I am sure I missed a bunch more.

My take? There is some great technology out there but no good business models or monetization mechanisms. The biggest players in the industry are making bets in this space and none of them have paid off yet. I don't see that changing for many years.

Google bought YouTube which combined great search technology with the biggest video library available. Google certainly knows the advertising game too. So, how is it working out for them? Well, the polite answer is...it's too early to tell. But, it is a good bet that they will figure it out in the long run and make it successful.

AOL bought Truveo and I would say the circumstances and results are about the same. Again, politely, it is too early to tell.

Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask also have video search offerings. It is sort of expected that a world class search engine will have video, image, and music search. Do they attract big traffic numbers or revenues? Probably not, but it is considered "table stakes". With all these big players in the game do startups have a chance?

The innovative start-ups are not discouraged. They are charging ahead with new video search ideas. Many of them are adding social networks around video. They are adding sharing, voting, tagging, comments, and all the typical social networking features around video search hoping that will create a viable business model.

Take a look at these 58 web video companies as examples of different ways to approach the problem. In alphabetical order... 

AOL Uncut, Blip, Blinkz, Break, Brightcove, Clesh, Cuts, Dabble, Daily Motion, Dave.tv, DivX Stage 6, eefoof, EveryZing, Eyeka, Eyespot, Fliqz, FlixYa, Forscene, Google Video, Gotuit, Grouper, iFilm, JayCut, Jumpcut, Kewego, LiveVideo, Lycos Mix, Metacafe, Mojiti, MotionBox, MyHeavy, MyNumo, MySpaceTV, Ning, OneTrueMedia, PodTech,  Photobucket, Revver, SevenLoad, Soapbox, StashSpace, Sumo, Twango, Veoh, Viddler, Vidilife, Vimeo, Vmix, VodPod, Vsocial, Webshots, Yahoo Video, YouAreTV, YouTube, Yurth, Zeec and Ziddio.

What do you think? How many did I miss? Who do you think will emerge as winners? What business model will work? Should video content include video advertisements or standard text ads? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Oh, in case you are wondering...my advice to this investment group was to pass. There are lots of other areas to invest with better prospects for profits.

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Comments

[Brier]

Hi Don, nice to see you at the Red Herring thing. What about Ooyala, the video startup that won the Amazon Web Services contest last night?

Going into the AWS contest I thought the same thing - video's too crowded - but the judges (from AMZN and VCs) thought otherwise. Do you think there's still opportunity for new companies improving Web video business infrastructure, reporting, management, etc?

[Don Dodge]

Brier, It was a pleasure to meet you and John Cook at the Red Herring Conference.

BrightCove and Gotuit Media, among others, provide similar experiences. All these companies have cool technology.

The main problem is finding a workable business/revenue model.

I went to the Ooyala site but it appears to still be in beta mode. I did read a review by Mashable where they talk about a "video overlay link" presumably for advertising. This might work, and if it does you can assume EVERY video company will employ it. So, where is the advantage?

I have been a judge at conferences like this, and other selection committees. You try to be positive and polite, and acknowledge great work. These video companies are doing really great work on very difficult problems. I totally get that...and admire it.

But, looking at this from an investment perspective...it is way too risky, way too crowded, and will probably be won by the big players like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL.

[video SEO]

Here is 150 video search and sharing sites... http://reelseo.com/video-search-sites

Don,

Thank you for the kind mention of MyNuMo. Our model is simply this. Artists upload original videos, videos are reviewed and approved by MyNuMo (typically in 24 hours) to meet the content rules established by the mobile operators. Content is then made available for sale to customers of the mobile operators (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) with revenue being shared between the operator, artist, and MyNuMo.

MyNuMo handles the transcoding, delivery and billing (via the customer's phone bill). Artists can feature their work on the MyNuMo 'Social Marketplace' or use marketing tools to show and sell videos (along with ringtones and wallpapers) on their own websites and blogs.

What sells? Music videos, interesting videos. For example I posted this as a test and for a time it became the best selling video on MyNuMo:

Kitten Video: http://www.mynumo.com/ringtones/preview.php?Cat_Id=5&Cn_Id=486

Always interesting to see what sells well on this "Social Marketplace."

Thank you,

William Volk
CEO, MyNuMo

[John Furrier]

Great post on the landscape of video. I think that the only way to make money is to figure out the ad model for the niche web.