Online video for the small business and small publisher

The top media, sports, entertainment and e-retail websites have long since realized that online video is a must to engage present audiences and entice new ones. But there are thousands of sites with quality content and thousands of businesses just entering the online market that could benefit substantially from employing online video.

Rob Manoff, CEO of Jambo Media, thinks online video will reach ubiquity across web sites in the near future, and he has positioned his company to serve the smaller content producers.

"We target the sites that are around 50,000 to 300,000 on the Alexa rankings that have really great content, but haven't integrated video yet," Manoff said. "These sites have loyal users, but probably don't have the means or knowledge to produce and deliver video and don't have an ad sales team. Jambo takes care of those back-end issues so they can have quality video content without a headache."

Jambo places its player on sites for free, and its business model is based on sharing ad revenue from the licensed video content with the site operators. Manoff said the company plans to get into serving small businesses eventually, but Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz, has already positioned his company to serve the market, which he predicts will be huge.

"We've seen interest across sectors for bringing online video capabilities to small business websites," Wayne said. "And lately, with the economic conditions, we've seen traction in interesting verticals, like state tourism, national parks, and zoos, because people aren't traveling internationally as much."

Wayne said that while the macroeconomic climate is poor, the trends actually help the online video market, because the penny-pinching drives people online to shop for bargains when they may have gone to the mall and shopped indiscriminately in the past. Online video makes for a deeper site experience and a more likely conversion of the viewer from visitor to buyer.

Wayne says some verticals, like automotive sales websites, are slowing their adoption as times get harder, but he still sees a growth market, given the amount of sites that have not integrated online video in their sales strategy.

"We want to continue to reach out to new verticals and evangelize online video," he said. "Ultimately, I think most mid-market companies and small businesses will have online video on their sites."

Competition certainly is a factor for the top sites, as some of the bigger names in online video, like thePlatform, Brightcove, and the FeedRoom have competed hardily for right to serve video to the top 100 sites. But Wayne said he wasn't too concerned about the threat of other companies targeting the small-to-medium sized business market, even as the larger, more established players try to migrate down the chain.

"I don't think it's a zero-sum game at this level, because so many sites have yet to add online video to their offerings," Wayne said. "And as for the larger players, I think they will have a difficult time adjusting to the sales cycle and IT capabilities of small businesses. They're used to selling to major customers and serving them, but these small businesses have different needs and preferences that need to be understood."

Both Wayne and Manoff stressed the need for video solutions for small publishers and businesses to be plug-and-play and very easy to operate.

As price points come down and broadband buildouts become a reality, I think you can count on small publishers and businesses to adopt online video. Because if they don't, they'll be at a considerable disadvantage in their own crowded market space.

- Pete