Looking Back:  The Three Biggest Online Video Events for 2008

We're pretty darn happy with the way Web video continued to grow throughout 2008.  We saw advertisers develop new tools to further monetize their online ads, NASDAQ and Dow companies continue to build Internet video into their Web sites, and increased views of online videos across the board. 

Here are our three favorite video events for 2008:

1.    Use of Web video throughout the election.  This election season brought online video front and center.  Both Obama and McCain used Internet video on their Web sites while successfully maintaining YouTube channels.

   
Obama's YouTube channel had 145,733 subscribers with 20,124,436 views while McCain had 28,806 subscribers with 2,234,066 views.  Which means almost 175,000 people subscribed to their channels with over 22 million views!

2.    NBC puts the Olympics online.  NBCOlympics.com covered 25 sports with 2,200 hours of live streaming and people tuned in.  In the first four days, 13.5 million videos were streamed, and the site's numbers peaked in August with over 15 million unique visitors.

3.    Video beats out search.  In May 2008, people watched 12 billion videos and only searched 10.4 billion times.  For Internet advertisers, who have been traditionally focused on search-based advertising (AdWords), this has and will continue to have lasting implications.    

Looking Forward:  Predictions for Online Video in 2009

All of the focus on dire economic news can put a bit of a damper on your holiday spirits.  We'd like to help remedy that with some good news: online video is looking good for 2009 and may even help get the economy moving again.

Streaming Media predicts that "rather than being a victim of today's unsettled climate, business video appears to be on the way to becoming one of the drivers that helps to pull us out of our economic doldrums."
 
As business owners and advertisers continue to see Internet video's potential, we anticipate more and more businesses will add Web video to their Web sites, as well as utilize it as a marketing tool.  eMarketer predicts that online video advertising spending will increase to $750 million dollars in 2009 with Internet video viewers (who watch at least one Web video a month) increasing to 16.5 million viewers.

And more online videos means more video technology sold.  Streaming Media anticipates spending on Webcasting technology will increase over 30% from $460 to $605 million.

Want to see some of the big trends in online video in 2008?  Click here to check out our Video Bloom VIEW (or Video Enabled Web) Index.

Holiday Cards Are So Last Century

The holidays are all about connecting with people and we think online video is the perfect way to do it.  It's quick (more time to get your shopping done!), easy (save your brain power for holiday chit-chat!) and personal (even better than the traditional holiday letter!). 

A couple of ways to use online video to connect with customers, friends and family this holiday season:

-Quickly send out last minute holiday specials and deals with a brief online video (much faster than creating an e-blast).

-Send your holiday greetings virtually with an Internet video email or Web video montage.

-Tell key customers how much you appreciate them with a personal video card.

-Share holiday moments with friends and family that live elsewhere with an online video email.

-Get your guests psyched for your New Year's party with Web video invites.

-Document your New Year's resolutions with our online video recorder.

Below is a video invitation to VideoBloom's company holiday party that was created using our video montage creator.
 

Thank you and remember VideoBloom is your source for reliable and innovative video solutions.

Bloom On!

The VideoBloom Team