J.P. Morgan released it’s 2009 Nothing But Net report on January 5th. The report covers investment opportunities that span various internet properties. Among them, is Online Video. In this post, we take a look at the segment in detail.
The online video section, entitled “The Challenges for Online Video” starts off with a statement that resonates with new media producers — monetization. According to the report, three factors control monetization in this medium — reach, content quality, and performance measurability.
- Reach: Similar to any mainstream media source, reach is important. If you can’t get your content in front of a relavant audience, nothing else matters. Does web-video have it’s challenges in finding an audience? Absolutely! It takes consistency, active pursuit and time to reach a dedicated audience. There are few, if any shows that become an overnight success. Therefore, reaching a target audience is necessary and essential.
- Content quality: Although important to a certain degree, content quality is not essential in monetizing online content. Example: One of the biggest success stories of web-video is lonelygirl15. Published on YouTube, and resembling production-values that are slightly above home-video, the show continues to be a huge success. On the other hand, there are online media networks, such as Revision3 that have full-fledged studios for production purposes.
- Measurability: J.P. Morgan also indicates that performance measurement is difficult. However, in our opinion, that isn’t true. Web analytics technology has improved significantly over the past few years. If implemented correctly, publishers can track detailed information regarding media-plays, including source and length of a media-play. Combined with click-tracking technology, today, media measurement is adequate, efficient, and informational for any advertiser.
