XVOD, $30B market – are you in? Thoughts from Streaming Media West 2016

If you are a publisher, content creator, storyteller or a developer and marketer of video content, you probably already know that the way to user’s’ heart is through online video. And you may be thinking, wait a minute, online video isn’t new, why are you telling me this now?

Well, the industry has matured and online video technologies have significantly evolved since the days we streamed and watched WMV (Windows Media) in low resolution and sometimes a pixelated video. Nowadays, we can stream 4K videos on any device, we have Flash video technologies (have been around for a while, and are already phasing out by many vendors but still has a strong demand due to low latency capabilities), and strong support for Video, using HTML5.

But the field is not free of challenges, from production workflows, to viewers and monetization. All these require heavy lifting tasks to meet any standard workflow at scale. When it comes to live streaming (video), the challenge is even greater.

Typical workflows start with the video content ingestion to the closest location of your delivery platform from the contribution network  to doing real-time encoding and transcoding jobs. Then, there are the content management tasks and the ability to stream the videos to any device in the right format and quality, avoiding re buffering. Let’s not forget that you also need to measure and analyze the data, from editorial and network perspectives, and loop it back to the workflow.

While attending the Streaming Media West conference, I had the opportunity to see how the online video business is now shifting from technology to business showing first signs of industry maturity. For example, Netflix and the endless opportunities these guys have. It’s clearly a great time to start employing monetization tools, into your online video workflows and to tap into this $30 Billion-dollar market.

Recent studies show that in 2015 there were 120 Million subscribers generating $10 Billion dollars in revenues. In 2020 xVOD services (SVOD, TVOD, AVOD) are predicted to surpass $30-$31 Billion that will come from 330 Million subscribers worldwide.

TVOD out; SVOD and AVOD in

While 38.4% of subscribers have 1 online video subscription, we can see that 18.78% of subscribers are subscribed to 2 online video subscriptions. When it comes to millennials, the numbers are much higher. Most of the people who reported having 3 or more subscriptions are millennials.

This data, from the event, reflects today’s status, but I can only imagine what the online video business is going to be like, 5 years from now. There will be many more devices and more ways for users to consume content in a variety of business models. Storytellers could tell their stories within games, using immersive techniques and even 3D and virtual worlds. These are exciting times for the online video industry.

Although video advertising is not new and is already generating a lot of business and revenue in a mature ecosystem, we should expect AVOD (Advertising based VOD) to introduce new ways of advertising. In addition, there is a bunch of new software and startup companies out there, who are working on introducing new formats and ways for advertising, that will also impact the industry, once they are out (soon).

With companies like Roku, Netflix, Periscope, Beamr, HBO, Twitter, Encoding.com, IBM, Elemental and other companies visiting #SMWest (Streaming Media West), the BitsNGo team had the opportunity to show and discuss its unique video solutions and the ability to serve the online video industry from the quality of service and workflow standpoint.

If you are a player in the online video or video ad-tech industry, a storyteller or game developer, who wants to learn how BitsNGo can help you improve your video workflow management, so you can tap into this soon to be $30Billion market, visit our website www.bitsngo.com and get things started!