Will Video Demand Increase?

A CNET News Article states Video may have killed the radio star, but it doesn't have to kill the Internet.

That is if Internet service providers can figure out how to keep up with the video-driven bandwidth demand on their networks. Peer-to-peer technology provider BitTorrent says it can help.

Video consumes more network resources than any other media distributed on the Web. Even poor-quality video from YouTube eats up more bandwidth than e-mail, music downloading, and voice over IP services. And when you throw full-length high-definition video into the mix, you're talking about even more bandwidth. Depending on the compression used, a single HD video stream can eat up 20 megabits per second worth of bandwidth.

And as consumers subscribe to faster and faster broadband connections at home and sites like YouTube and Hulu come online offering all kinds of video choices, more people are watching video on the Web. According to ComScore Video Metrix, Americans are currently watching upward of 10 billion videos online a month. By the end of 2007, online viewers averaged more than one video a day.

This is just the beginning. ABI research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web will nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least 1 billion in 2013.

All this video is great for viewers, who are able to pick and choose what they watch and when. But for Internet service providers like the phone companies and the cable operators, it represents a massive challenge. Some providers, such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, are testing out new ways to deal with "bandwidth hogs" or individual users who use an inordinate amount of bandwidth.

Last month, Comcast began testing a new system that will throttle back or slow down traffic during times of congestion for heavy bandwidth users. The new system was developed after Comcast faced stark criticism for singling out and slowing down peer-to-peer traffic.

What is the Socialution?

GoYoDeo!

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An All in One Application?

Jumping around from one network to another, reading one blog then going to another and jumping back and forth to your email client seems like a waste of time and technology. The push for "open" is surrounding us yet the silos of information and connectivity remain. Or do they?

This week we witnessed the work of The Floating APP Company, creators of GoYoDeo. The company first released a "floating application for video distribution with custom stations and each having up to 20 channels per station. Things have changed a lot since its original release.

We asked the question, "What Next?" Drew Bourke responded "Soon everything you do on the internet today can will be done without having to jump around from one site to another. You won't even have to open a browser. Our applications will launch directly from your desktop or your cell phone and soon "Your Station" will even be embedded within your cable box for TV viewing. Our mission is to empower people to do more in less time using every social tool imaginable, even those not yet in the market"

We'd say these objectives sound like the ultimate Socialution

How Fast Will Things Change?

Economists think about reality in terms of markets. In practice, a market is just an abstraction, and drawing the limits of markets out of actual information is a difficult task.

Consider the social networking market today and one can easily conclude that the rate of change makes it difficult to actual put boundaries around the definitions of “the market”.

Systemically speaking, some well differentiated markets are transformed into new ones, because of changes in the technology and the demand that cause the products or services of the original markets to end up by serving identical needs to the same customers. In such a situation, firms are faced with big opportunities and big potential drawbacks

Those that is able to correctly foresee the future developments can gain an important head start and position themselves so as to obtain an important competitive advantage. On the other hand, making irreversible investments in the wrong technology can seriously threaten the competitive position of a firm. This is the dilemma all of us.

Social Technology is Converging

There are different technological segments currently operating independently but on the fringe of convergence. Consider what is happening in the telecommunications industry. Consider what is happening within the social media space. Consider what is happening in the cable broadcasting space

Now consider on line social networking technologies. Everything is rushing to “open”. Open means transparent distribution and ultimately technological barriers become transparent. When you consider new developments within the social space” common themes are becoming clear. These include:

1. Aggregation of “social news” generated by users is an attraction, i.e. Socialmedian
2. Aggregation of friends activity is an attraction i.e. Friendfeeds and twitter
3. Aggregation of social contacts is an attraction i.e "friends connect”
4. “Aggregation of blogs by topical category is an attraction, i.e. Alltop”
5. Social Broadcasting is an attraction i.e. YouTube, GoYoDeo etc.

Convergence usually comes from outside an existing system and led by those watching the fringes. Our conclusion is that the obvious is starring us all in the face but the chaos of the moment distracts us from seeing the obvious.

From our perspective convergence is not a question of will it happen but rather an issue of when. What is missing to usher convergence in?.

What say you?