What’s on?
Facebook, the killer online social networking site announced yesterday that they were now the number 3 video streaming site on the web, with no signs of turning back.
While Youtube is still the giant online source, with a breathtaking 6.63 billion videos streamed in September, (and 105 million unique viewers), Facebook jumped the queue from the number ten spot to the number three spot with 217 million streams and 31 million unique viewers.
Hulu is still in the number two spot with 632 million streams but only 13 million viewers in September.
You can read all the stats here.
Something is happening here, something we should be paying attention to.
What is happening is that the web/video marriage is starting to figure out what it is going to look like. And increasingly it looks like it is going to be a marriage of social media plus video.
The totality of our experience with video to date has been through television – which was and remains a killer medium.  The average American family watched  a mind-boggling 8.2 hours per day (per day!) last month.  (It is no wonder we are debt ridden culture – no one is doing any work, apparently).  Television, by dint of its architecture, created a linear landscape.
Television was broadcast through the airwaves – it was massively expensive to create and massively expensive to deliver to people’s homes. Â So the notion of ‘TV Shows’ evolved as the medium grew up with those constraints.
But take away the dual constraints of high cost of production and difficulty to distribute and suddenly you have what we might call ‘video unbound’.
And what does ‘video unbound’ look like?
We don’t really know yet. Â We don’t know what 7 billion people will do with 7 billion video cameras for the next 50 years. But here’s a good guess what it will not look like: Â It will not look like today’s TV shows. In fact, it is doubtful that there will be ‘shows’ of any kind.
The grammar of video that we see today on TV will no doubt continue to influence the way that video looks at least for the forseeable future – just as The Bible, the only written ‘book’ prior to Gutenberg, strongly influenced the nature of writing and publishing for several hundred years post 1452.
But just as surely as print evolved to newspapers, magazines, monographs, billboards and ultimately blogs – its most recent iteration – so too will video evolve, but undoubtedly much faster.
The remarkable growth of video+facebook in just a few months is probably only the beginning of a trend.  As Facebook becomes more video friendly, and as more and more phones have video capacity (and the arrival of 4G which will give real time streaming to video) should only  magnify the process.
Hulu, and sites like them will undoubtedly continue to be dominated by professional produced TV shows – and that is fine, but painfully limiting in a world of such explosive demand for video content on a continual basis.
Here’s a sobering statistic: Â Let’s assume, just for curiosity sake, that of the 6.63 billion videos that Youtube streamed in September, they were, on average 2 minutes long. This is, by anecdote only, probably a very low number, but let’s just say for argument’s sake.
That means that in September alone, Youtube streamed a total of  221 million hours of content in just one month.
221 million hours.
Now, it normally takes NBC about 4 months to turn around 1 hour of 30 Rock or shows like that. Â But let’s give them credit- those shows are pretty good. And the Today Show goes out live – so it takes an hour for NBC to produce one hour of Today. Â So let’s say, again for argument’s sake, that NBC, all geared up and cranking at top speed can produce 25 hours of content a day. Â (I think that is a very very high number, but let’s assume). Â In that case, it would take NBC, working at full bore, 24 hours a day, 7 days as week, 1009 years (years!) to match what Youtube video has delivered in 1 month.
And then again, there’s October to deal with. And then November.
And guess what…. Youtube’s content (or a great deal of it) was produced for next to no cost.
And distributed globally for pretty much the same.
Is it any wonder that GE wants to sell NBC as soon as possible.
Those folks are not dumb.
They make nuclear reactors for crying out loud.
17 Comments
Sarah Monahan December 30, 2009
I actually use Facebook to host video which I embed into my travel website, http://www.goingdownonline.com
I was originally hosting it on Current.com, but they added commercials at the beginning of the video, which Facebook does not. I also like hosting them on Facebook since I have a fanpage there, and I get more viewers that way. Working in SEO and social media, I understand it’s important to get as many places as possible pointing to my site and getting more people traveling to both sites. It’s also free to host my video on Facebook. I’d have to pay serious dollars for all that space to host video on the same server as my website.
Hopefully, as the site grows, I’ll get more fans on Facebook and they in turn will also visit the Going Down website. Maybe one day, if we get enough people subscribing to the website, one of the networks like Travel Channel or Discovery will believe me there’s a big enough audience for a Scuba Travel Series. 😉
Michael Rosenblum November 21, 2009
Dear $
For what it is worth, I earn every two weeks what I used to get from CBS as a producer for a year’s work. The entrepreneurial world is not so terrible. Believe me. I am delighted that they keep re-hiring you. But you have yet to explain what it is exactly that you do. Just curious.
$ November 21, 2009
I’m not surprised CBS didn’t pay you that much in the first place.
And for most of us, that is not a surprise.
How much clearer do I need to be.
Shoot video.
Edit video.
Every day for almost thirty years.
Employed full time to do it and they pay me to keep doing it.
A lot longer than a couple of weeks here and there a step ahead of having to face the concequences when promises you make fall well short of your false claims of success.
Unless you want to wear wooden shoes and work in the Netherlands.
LOL
Michael Rosenblum November 20, 2009
Nino
I work hard.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
For the people who work for me, I tell them, “if you don’t show up for work on Saturday, don’t bother coming in on Sunday.” I don’t play golf.
My work is all the projects I do.
And those you have seen all over the place.
Here’s a new one you can see http://www.nyvs.com
just to be sure you have seen something.
See you soon.
Nino November 20, 2009
You know Michael, I’ve been listening to you for years saying all the things that you’ve done and most fascinating the chronological timing of when you did everything that you’ve done. And if I try to piece everything together you either never go to sleep, have a twin, or you look awfully good for being at least 95
And is amazing with all these accomplishments nobody has ever seen a single piece of your own work.
What an amazing individual you are, and I would love to have lunch with you eye to eye.
Michael Rosenblum November 20, 2009
Gee Nino
For someone who has been ‘following’ me for years, I would think you could rattle off all the newsrooms I have spent time in – from WNET/13 in New York to CBS News to all the local stations I have ‘set foot in’. Oh yeah, I was President of New York Times TV… well, The New York Times is not really news business… or is it? Why does it take ‘balls’ to ask $ what he does at Fox? If he wants to comment on what I say or know about news, I think I am entitled to ask what from where he comes? Just like I like to look at your Ponds Skin Care promos and understand where you come from. “The news GURU who never set foot in a newsroom?” Where did you come up with that idea? PS, hows’ the weather down there in Tampa? I just did a deal to do a TV station in Sarasota. That’s near you. Maybe I’ll come over for a look see at your operation. What do you say?
Nino November 20, 2009
Lunch is on me
Michael Rosenblum November 20, 2009
Dear Nino
If you were an orthopedic surgeon and your brother was a neurosurgeon and you lived in the same city and socialized all the time, I might think that you picked up a few things about neurosurgery over the years.
But of course you are not an orthopedic surgeon. You carry a camera around on your shoulder. See, you and I are in the same business, but I have a pretty good idea of how your business works as well. Just imagine if we were brothers. Get the drift here?
Probably not.
Nino November 20, 2009
But I do Michael, I really do. My other cousin, the neurosurgeon’s sister, is a physiologist and I learn from her how to detect BS artists a mile away. Your blog here is a treasure for learning this subject.
The fact remains that you talk big, not because of actual working experience, but you love to drop names, you know somebody who knows somebody……… who knows somebody….etc……etc.
When we discuss an issue with you we do it from frontline experience and unlike you we are also humble enough to step aside from any topic if our knowledge comes from hearsay or from knowing somebody and not from getting out hands dirty.
And you have to balls to ask $ what he does at FOX, he works there, you should try work experience, it gives you self respect. What have you ever done in news, beside knowing somebody. The news GURU that never set foot in a newsroom. Knowing somebody should gain you credibility and the right to talk down to people who actually work for a living doing news?
This is why you never came ahead when we start debating something; and you always end up throwing in the good ole Michael’s MO
“I don’t have time to waste with youâ€
Cliff Etzel November 19, 2009
Excellent posting Michael.
$ – great job inserting your foot into your mouth yet again.
Nino November 19, 2009
Hey Cliff, my cousin is a neurosurgeon; I have a pretty good sense of how that works. No kidding.
Maybe I can help you with your chronic ass-kissing condition.
$ November 20, 2009
Thanks Cliff,
It’s always nice to see the unemployed free divers of the world taking time out from holding their breath to comment on something they, themselves, have failed at.
Best to you in the future.
Keep plugging away guy.
One day you’ll figure out what you can and can’t do to actually make a buck.
Michael Rosenblum November 19, 2009
Keep smiling. My sister was actually the Deputy EP and Senior Producer for the Today’s Shows 8am hour for several years. I have a pretty good sense of how that show works. No kidding.
Yes yes, of course I understand that there are packages not to mention the time to book and write the show and post stuff, but the time ratio, for purposes of this comparison to Youtube places them closer to a 1:1 ratio than say, 30 Rock.
What do you do at Fox, exactly?
$ November 21, 2009
Unlike you, or your sister, I remain employed in a real newsroom. Shooting, editing and even helping write news stories under daily deadlines, as a part of a viable news business operation.
Something, to this day, you are unable to do.
Better yet, they keep asking me to come back and do it again day after day for many years.
Again, something you have not been able to achieve.
Ever.
steve November 21, 2009
can’t speak for m.r., but his pad ain’t too shabby, there’s talk he’s got his eyes on a pretty nice piece of driftwood and he seems to fly first-class alot.
i don’t know how you pat yourself on the back so much without rippin’ a tendon.
$ November 21, 2009
There’s a lot you don’t know.
But that’s pretty obvious.
$ November 19, 2009
Rosenblum: ” And the Today Show goes out live – so it takes an hour for NBC to produce one hour of Today.”
It’s moment like this, reading one of your statement, that I smile and know without a doubt you have no idea what you are talking about.