More than a (Future) Billion Served

ABI Research predicts online video viewers will reach at least one billion in five years, a quadrupling of current estimates.

Fuelling the rise in viewers will be a combination of increasing broadband penetration and rising connection speeds. This will make vendors happy across a number of market segments ranging from content owners and Internet portal sites to UGC (User-generated-content) aggregators such as YouTube and video distribution sites such as Apple's iTunes.  

ABI also talks about the change in technologies for content distribution shifting from "direct" methods such as CDNs, peer-to-peer networks, and hybrid approaches. No discussion on how a healthy appetite for video might affect hardware vendors such as Cisco or network providers such as AT&T or Verizon.

Traditional pay-TV operators are supposedly at risk and need to take an "if you can't beat them, join them" approach by offering access to content via alternative platforms, adapting web content distribution via their traditional model and include advertising support--sounds like what NBC is doing.

For more:
- ABI's Billions of Online Video Viewers report.

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