Amidst the recent debate over Boxee and Hulu, I began to think about the unique structural elements of online video. The success of Hulu and other providers of professional content have distorted what I believed was the original value proposition of online video.
Most broadly, the internet is a remarkable content publishing platform that allows the user/creator to circumvent traditional media channels and corporate conglomerates and bring opinions and content directly to people, asking them to vote with their eyeballs. While the growth of the blogosphere certainly has its downside (which I discuss one aspect of here on my own personal blog), it brought about a remarkable media-consumption revolution. No longer do a few key news sources serve as my lenses to view the world — in following the election, for example, I didn’t only rely on journalists at the NYT or WSJ (companies heavily reliant on corporate ad dollars), I checked out 538 daily and read my friends’ opinions as well.
The benefit of this media-consumption change is that individual writers untethered to the corporate news structure can afford to be more risky, controversial, and creative than the pros. That doesn’t mean that they are always better, but it does allow them to challenge conventional thinking and push their audience. Not all of them will be successful (think about how many blogs have no readers), but at least in theory there is now a marketplace of ideas with negligible barriers to entry–may the best content get my views.
Ideally, online video should serve a similar end — online video should be the more dangerous, risky and creative cousin of traditional TV. Online video creators are never going to beat their broadcast or cable TV brethren at creating high quality content–the production budgets are smaller, actors worse, etc. Still, however, too many video producers are trying to mimic the style of TV and are failing because of it — it’s a worse viewing experience online and the content is almost certainly going to be less professional. Seth McFarlane’s Cavalcade of Comedy is one of the rare examples of TV talent who moved to the online space as a means to both make money (through an innovative deal with the Google Content Network) and try out some alternative concepts that weren’t allowed by the FCC or FOX.
At Portal A, we try to keep all of this in mind when we create unique online-exclusive content. We recognize that no one is Ghostriding Volvos on NBC and we’re happy with that–it’s a funny niche activity that people enjoyed (2.1M views and countless spinoffs). While there are plenty of music videos on TV, no one is producing rap battles between Bankers and Consultants. While not all of our videos are going to be hits, we’re going to work to keep trying to create unique content that pleases, and pushes, our fans.
Why on earth would you make a video that encourages dangerous and reckless behaviour?