YouTube and Facebook immersed in online video wars

YouTube still rules the video universe, but Facebook is spending mega-bucks to close the gap.

The online video wars are on, and their major players except one will be meeting in full force this week.

The VidCon convention, once a way for fans to meet their favourite YouTube stars, opens to a sold out crowd of 25,000 enthusiasts and reps from all walks of the growing online video industry.

A burning question for many: Whether Facebook, battling hard for video views with YouTube, will start to share revenues with the legions of semi-professional video creators.

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YouTube still rules the video universe, but Facebook is spending mega-bucks to close the gap, while communications app Snapchat is pressuring both. Twitter just upped its video game, and there are up and comers like YouNow, Musical.ly and Flipagram.

More folks are viewing video on mobile phones than ever before and the industry has taken notice.

All the top players except for Snapchat will be exhibiting and talking up their place in the video world for VidCon, and telling why the estimated 100,000 force of « influencers » – folks with large social followings who make a living creating for online viewing – should spend more time on their platform.

MONEY MAKING

Despite the new competition, YouTube is still the No. 1 site for watching video, attracting 1 billion users monthly, and it’s still the top place rewarding creators for posting their videos on YouTube in return for a share of ad revenues.

Of the 1000 video creators who work with Collab, a digital studio that aims to increase their online exposure, some 90 per cent make the majority of their direct ad-share dollars from YouTube, which « is still the most profitable outlet for creators », says James McFadden, co-founder and CEO.

Online video viewing is way up, with 589 billion global video views in May, up 164 per cent from previous year, according to market research firm Tubular Labs.

A year ago, Facebook said it had 4 billion video views daily on the social network, a number that’s now grown to 8 billion. And that’s dwarfed by the 10 billion daily video views cited by messaging app Snapchat. Of course, each service measures video views differently. Facebook’s are on auto play, while Snapchat videos are 10 seconds or less.

Google-owned YouTube hasn’t matched the figures, saying it cares more about watch time than daily views. It says the growth in watching videos on YouTube has accelerated and is up at least 50 per cent year over year.

LIVE IS IT

Live video is the new craze. This year Facebook is pushing Facebook Live as a way to keep fans engaged, and paying celebrities and brands to use it and grow the audience. 

YouTube offers a live feature, but it’s little used. Facebook has yet to match YouTube in paying nonbrand names to post their videos on the social network, in return for a share of ad revenues.

« The Facebook threat (to YouTube) is very serious, but until they can figure a way for creators to really monetise the videos directly, like YouTube, I just don’t see them getting the same level of quality content, » says McFadden.

Facebook has said it was committed to building a « sustainable ecosystem » but hasn’t gone beyond that. VidCon attendees hope to hear more from the social network over the next few days.

Rival Twitter says it will talk revenue share with creators at VidCon, while smaller sites like YouNow and Musical.ly currently offer it now.

Several panels at VidCon will be devoted to how to make money on Snapchat, which involves having a sponsor pay the way.

Not everybody is ready to jump on the Snapchat bandwagon, despite the massive audience size.

« It’s a good audience, but it requires an enormous amount of resources before you can go in, » says Cenk Uygur, who runs the Young Turks (TYT) news program, which broadcasts live on YouTube and runs segments on Facebook. « In the hope that you’ll build an audience with content that disappears. »

What isn’t open for debate is that more young folks are using the phone « as a portable TV in their pocket, » says Mike Vorhaus, an analyst with Frank Magid Associates.

Millennial viewing of TV programs on mobile and desktop has already surpassed traditional TV for this age group, « and as the rest of us age out, that’s clearly the trend and where things are headed. »


 – MCT

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