Not all computers are created equally and not all connection speeds offer the same experience. Which is why companies are now realizing they need to be inclusive and cater for the majority rather than the minority of people. YouTube ‘Feather’ is one such effort.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Computers have been getting more and more powerful and Internet connection speeds have been increasing in speed as well. However, Web sites have continually stayed ahead of the curve, offering more graphic-heavy and slow-loading pages to tax even the newest machines.

So, while the Web of today would be unrecognizable to someone from 1998, the same problems of connection speed and buffering exist as they did back then.

Which is why some sites are now trying to cut down on clutter and offer users a more streamlined experience. Enter YouTube ‘Feather’.

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The Bravo cable channel offers a number of full-length episodes that can be viewed online, including “Top Chef” and “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”

BravoTV Full-Length Episodes Online

Bravo is a cable channel offering a wide-variety of original programming. Their site, BravoTV.com, offers a number of full-length episodes, a large of video clips (over 7,000+) from a large number of their programs, in addition to other comments like image galleries, games and blogs.

Detailed Schedule of Bravo Programming

BravoTV also offers you a detailed viewing schedule of the day’s programming, with the ability to see two weeks worth in advanced. The schedule includes the name of the show, the broadcast time and a comprehensive description of the episode (enough of a description to let me know that I personally have no interest in viewing any of these programs in the first place.)
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The Mr. Burns Webcam is a webcam deisgned to resemble the villianous character Montgomery Burns from the long-running cartoon series the Simpsons.

“Smithers, release the hounds!”

Mr. Burns if the quintessential villain from the Simpsons series - old, bald, greedy, and generally scheming things involving Homer Simpson. And now Montgomery Burns has been immortalized into a glaring, evil webcam that can be either propped on a desktop or clipped to a monitor.
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You know online video is starting to mature when its even influencing Tinseltown. Federico Alvarez, an unknown filmmaker from Uruguay, has landed a $30 million budget to make a Hollywood blockbuster purely based on a short film he uploaded to YouTube.

YouTube & Upwards

YouTube in particular, and online video in general, is fast becoming a means of gaining fame, popularity, and wealth. We’ve seen the people behind certain viral video hits make a mint from their content creation.

Lauren Luke started off uploading short make-up tips on YouTube and is now an in-demand make-up artist. And Lucas Cruikshank has already made a load of money for his ever-popular Fred shorts and is currently involved in making a movie based on the petulant man/boy.

However, the story of how Federico Alvarez landed a huge Hollywood deal beats those hands down.

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Online video is still hot, but launching a successful video site is no cake walk. YouTube is by far the largest video site, yet even it has difficulties with profitibility. Does it make sense to start a YouTube clone based on the same profit-lacking business model?

In this article I’ll outline two of my favourite video site business models, either of which can be deployed with a sub-Google budget. My experince comes from being the founder of Fight Tube, a niche video sharing site on martial arts.

Like me, anyone starting a video site typically has several major barriers to profitability:

Monetization Problems:

• Viewers stare at videos until they’re over, limiting their ad exposure (unless it’s an intrusive overlay or pre-roll ad).
• Viewers have little reason to explore the page after the video finishes. On to the next clip! This again results in ads on video sites getting very little attention from users.
• Charging for content is a hard sell. The price of online video clips has been established at zero.
• The online video advertising industry is very young and has still not found its footing. Advertisers are nervous and not too sure what they want yet, and publishers and ad networks are lacking systems that make online video advertising easy and effective. Fortunately developments in this area have been making solid progress, but still have a long way to go.
• Video sites are costly on bandwidth, storage, and development.

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It’s a simple question - would you pay to stream an episode of a TV show on YouTube? It would cost the same as on iTunes and Amazon but it would be a one-off rental deal, with no download or ownership option. Well, would you?

YouTube Diversifying

Yesterday I wrote about how YouTube was launching its first ever offline advertising campaign in the U.K. Meant to promote the new TV content from Channel 4 and other broadcasters, it clearly spelled out YouTube’s intentions to succeed with professional content.

Now, just a day later and MediaMemo is claiming that YouTube is in early negotiations with networks and studios about offering shows through YouTube for a price. This comes three months after similar reports emerged but with movies being the order of the day.

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YouTube’s move into the realm of professional and full-length content continues apace. And it’s now launching its first ever offline advertising campaign to promote the ‘Shows’ section of the U.K. version of the site.

The Past

When YouTube began it was, like every young online video startup, a lawless place with all sorts of content. But that couldn’t continue, and Google’s buyout along with Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit meant the site had to ‘go legit’, with copyrighted content a no-no.

This meant that UGC was focused on almost solely, with YouTube building a reputation as THE place to go for amateur-shot videos.

But that alone wasn’t going to see Google spin a profit from its massive investment. So YouTube aimed to place more professionally produced, copyrighted content on the site. Alongside both the deals that made it legal and the advertising to (hopefully) pay for it.

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