Part 2 What do small businesses need in an online video deployment?

Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum's company also provides a self-service model for the busy small business owner, but Magnify also encourages its small business customers to find syndication opportunities to create a richer video experience.

"One of the things that happens a lot in this market in particular, is people make a whole bunch of video at first, but even as it gets simpler for them to produce it with practice, the effort involved always takes time," Rosenbaum said. "Part of what Magnify believes, is the video you make for your site, whether you're a plumber, electrician, orthopedist, you don't need to make it all yourself," Rosenbaum said.

He also noted that small business customers often need an explanation about the legitimacy of syndication before they commit. Since we're in the early stages of online video adoption, Rosenbaum said clients tend to ask "Is it ok to use this video on my site if I didn't shoot it?" He and his sales staff can explain how to syndicate free content legitimately to increase drastically the business' video content library. He remains very bullish on this space.

"We are at a moment of time for small business where we're still in the get of jail free phase," Rosenbaum said. "Whatever your trade, you can't fail at web video yet, but you're reaching a point when not having video is going to be a problem. In 18 months, your site without video will be in the minority."

Rosenbaum's assertion was echoed by several of his peers, and many other companies are reporting rapid growth in both the number of small business clients and revenue generated from them.

Brightcove, which initially focused on larger media companies and clients with large video libraries, launched in October 2008 a product called Brightcove Basic to target the SMB market. Jeff Whatcott, vice president of marketing for Brightcove, said spelling out the difference between free hosted options like YouTube and his company's SaaS offering is often the beginning of the online video discussion.

"If they're calling they have an inkling of the sorts of services they're not getting from YouTube, and helping them sort though it and have a clear understanding of they they're getting with Brightcove Basic is the first step," Whatcott said. "You show them that it's difficult to get people back to your own site for conversion if you're only putting videos on YouTube. If they understand about putting out interesting content that people are willing to share, and walk them through that and how they should think about traffic, it's helpful to them. They begin get a feel for the appeal of the content, and they see how they can look bigger as a company and do a more effective job telling their story."