The great unbundling of YouTube
And why Snapchat, not YouTube or Facebook, will win the online video battle.
For the first time in a while, we’re set to see one almighty battle as the big technology companies fight it out over the future’s largest form of content — video.
And I reckon Snapchat is setting itself up to dominate.
The unbundling of YouTube
For many years, YouTube has been the home of online video. Largely unchallenged, it has had a monopoly over video.
They’ve done a brilliant job at curating and delivering video to the masse, giving anyone the opportunity to upload their content, control how it’s used and make small amounts of cash in return for hosting and the distribution. Yet it does a pretty poor job of allowing its users to make serious money. Partly because of the way Google looks at advertising, with brands reluctant to pay too heavy a price to be associated with user generated content, and partly due to the lack of competition.
With its complete dominance in the video space over the years, YouTube has had the chance to be Netflix, Twitch, or even Spotify, but are only now exploring subscription models. Other startups have begun carving out new platforms targeting the larger YouTube categories, offering a different experience for users or new opportunities for content creators to make make money. Like Craigslist was unbundled into many startups, the same is happening with YouTube. We’re trying to do just that in sport with one of our new products called Grandstand.
Here come the pretenders
Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Yahoo are on the charge in the online video space. The current and future size of the market means the platforms who wins a share will be big businesses in their own right. On all fronts, they are exploring everything from native video production on their platforms through to buying VR companies. They are all looking to be the platform for the content creators and push great videos into your feeds using smart algorithms whilst driving videos advertising pounds too.
In Facebook’s recent quarterly, they announced having 3 billion video views every day. Admittedly auto-play has an impact, but nonetheless it’s still a real sit-up-and-notice moment for YouTubers. Zuckerburg has also stated that he believes that Facebook will be mostly video in 5 years.
Alongside Vine, Twitter has also recently rolled out a native video player, Yahoo is reported to be working on something big in video and Amazon bought live streaming company Twitch last year. Numerous startups are trying to explore new ways to be a platform for video, tackling problems like production, editing, or live streaming.
Meanwhile, hardware companies like Apple and GoPro are in a prime position to combine hardware and software by launching their own video services.
Video on Snapchat
Speak to my younger cousins and they’ll tell you how integral Snapchat is to their communications. Speak to my friends who are teachers and they’ll moan about the problems it’s causing in schools. It’s the thing everyone is on. Just look at Twitter search about them to see how much it means to people. It really is the Facebook of this generation.
Although Snapchat started as a messaging app, it’s going to become so much more than that. The launch of stories allowed people to broadcast the most real window into their lives yet and the geo-fencing of live events (called ‘our stories’) gives an experience that live streaming platforms have failed to deliver so far.
Discover, their first play in editorial content, is stunning. The full screen viewing experience followed by extra, almost bonus content by swiping down is a completely new way to look at content on a mobile. Discover feels a lot like TV. You choose the channel and content you want to watch rather than it being pushed in front of your face. You opt into the channel with each partner’s content and the experience is different on each one. They’ve ripped up the rule book of social products having to be feed based, constant scrolling and a normalised experience for all content. Discover really could be Snapchat’s ‘news feed’ moment.
They have the opportunity not only be a player in the future of content (read video), but also the place to watch content. Mobile is going to be so much larger than the PC generation and products built mobile-first are set to win.
In the present, Snapchat is a messaging app with some content features and they’re knocking that out of the park… But Snapchat is building for the future where it knows video will be key and has the opportunity to be the leading platform for video. How long will it be before “I watched that on Snapchat…” becomes the norm?
With video set to be the king medium of content in the near future, all the major technology companies are making moves to take areas away from YouTube and we’re going to see more and more startups attempting to unbundle YouTube in all different ways.
It’s going to be one hell of a battle.
