Can Online Video Support Its Next Generation?

Video creators need to distribute, organize, and promote their content, and multiple startups are building on what YouTube already provides

by Liz Gannes

Hayden Black is nice, funny, quotable, and makes two critically acclaimed and modestly popular Web shows. He may not have a face for television, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming the poster boy for a market of online video producers that has a growing crowd of early-stage startups looking to meet its needs.

Black, who has never signed an exclusive deal and whose shows—Goodnight Burbank and Abigail's Teen Diary—are distributed on some 15 different hosting sites, says he gets pitched at least once a week to try the services of any number of new online video platforms, video converters, video ad networks, or analytics providers. But even Black, who is constantly tweaking his game plan in an effort to make it big, can't be every startup's best friend; he turns down many more than he accepts. "It would be silly hitching the train to something that has no track record to this point," he said.

Multiple startups are building on what portals such as YouTube, Revver, Vimeo, and Veoh provide to serve people like Black, who are trying to build an audience and a business around online content. These days, that could mean anything from citizen journalism like The Uptake to an online personality like iJustine or a TV network like MTV. Once such potential customers create their content they need to distribute, organize, and promote it—things existing tools do, just not particularly well.

Many of the new Web video companies are courting Black as a model customer to highlight in their pitch decks (though most don't actually charge him for their wares). "There are some people who want our shows on their platform and seem to think I owe them a favor," he says. But for startups that Black embraces, he's the master of the testimonial: "TubeMogul, who I just absolutely adore, that's a great example of a great product and great people behind it. If I had to upload episodes of Abigail to 15 places at a time, I would never leave the house. But because of their fantastic product, it's a click of a button."

Gauging the Market

But how many people actually have this problem? Is the market large enough to support the myriad companies building businesses around serving it? Entrepreneurs increasingly seem to think so, and venture capitalists are starting to back them.

Earlier this year, Emeryville (Calif.)-based TubeMogul raised $1.5 million from Knight's Bridge Capital Partners, and it's currently trying to raise more funding. New York City-based blip.tv, a video portal that hosts independent episodic shows and actively works to foster a community among its creators, raised money from Ambient Sound Investments and Lauder Partners last year and is also looking to raise more.

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