In a move to further solidify its position as an online video destination, DailyMotion has signed a non-exclusive deal to distribute 8 shortform programs from RDF USA online in the next 12 months. This is a significant move insofar as it will provide additional premium content to be delivered via DailyMotion as the site continues to try to keep pace with YouTube.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKN2742385820070727

CollegeHumor chose it’s niche well. Research by eMarketer indicates that the dominant genre of online video for young adults is comedy. For all other adult segments, the news genre dominates. I’ll try not to imagine what this means for the future of our country. Such imaginings aside, I expect this should change as online video content matures. Also, what are young kids watching online?

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005195

Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that the majority of online adults watch online video. Additionally, the majority of online video watching adults share videos with others. This helps enable the viral and democratic distribution of online video content. And hey, everybody’s doing it.

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/219/report_display.asp

Unsurprisingly, more people who watch online video say that they are also watching more TV. Enabling video consumers to get the content they are looking for in the mode that they wish to consume it should be good for video of all forms.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005196

This ABC News article provides nice coverage of Revver and some of the other companies using an ad revenue sharing model in the user generated video space:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=3403460&page=1

It is interesting to see this more democratic revenue model emerge in contrast to the traditional model where content creators had to first prove significant value before receiving compensation. It remains to be seen how viable this model is in the long run as it certainly has its weaknesses.

Firstly, there is nothing the binds a successful content creator to remain with one of the revenue sharing platforms. Should a user’s content be deemed worthy by a media company, they could certainly move all distribution to the given media company’s platform. In this way UGV sites which share revenue with content creators take the risk of paying for a content creator to get their start in the business but not being able to cash in on more developed content.

On the other hand, it may be the case that catching a phenomenon early is enough to build a business on. The online UGV space is certainly very fickle and incentivizing users to upload content to given platform first through modest compensation could pay off. It would seem a risky bet, but then again, the media space has never been without its risks.