Online Video and Libraries

DVD’s (and in olden days we had 8mm, 16mm, Super8, Beta and VHS) form a major part of many public libraries service offerings. And it’s in the midst of enormous change. Here are a few random bits and numbers about the current state of change in video:

2010 Was The Second-Worst Year Since 1996 For Hollywood Box-Office

“Thanks to inflation and the absurd cost of a 3-D movie ticket, box office revenues rose above $10 billion for the only the second time, but only 1.35 billion tickets were sold. That’s the lowest amount of tickets sold since 1.33 were sold in 1996. Attendance dropped 5.4% last year compared with 2009 and the largest drop since attendance fell 8.1% in 2005.”

Many libraries are seeing increases in DVD circulation. Most attribute this to the current bad economic state.

I think that is only part of the issue for mainstream Hollywood. They contend with:

1. Fewer theatres
2. Piracy (It’s often a simple matter to stream pirated copies on the web)
3. Streaming video through sites like Netflix.
4. Demographic changes where key markets like Millennials in their dating years use video in a different way.
5. Marketing challenges that use blogs and YouTube trailers and more to build audiences.
6. Focusing on big revenue mix changes in theatre, licensing and DVD.

Anyway, I think that these challenges face libraries to some degree as well. I would add that when formats shifted in the past, they remained physical and libraries continued to have easy access to purchase lendable copies. I worry that issues like DRM and licensing collections of current videos in streaming format makes it a different proposition to get legal copies and for libraries to compete against commercial or pirated market offerings. Will a major aggregator or two emerge for library licensing? Will Netflix, Hulu or another seek revenue from the library market or see us a competitors or ‘sales leakage’?

And for predictions, check out these predictions for online video in 2011:

1. The WebTV Bloodbath Is Just Beginning
2. Video Platforms Continue to Get Commoditized, Then Interesting
3. YouTube Community Still Alive
4. Video Search Will Suck Less, Get Better
5. Video Greetings Will Get More Awkward in 2011
6. Video Destinations Rival YouTube
7. Damn, We Need Curation
8. Online Video Gets More Social
9. You’re Going to Pay More for Broadband
10. Google Going Beyond YouTube

Read More –> Online Video Predictions For 2011: Are You Ready For The Storm?
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

For some more amazing numbers (or maybe not so mazing for those who acquire their video this way) see:

BitTorrent Has More Users Than Netflix and Hulu Combined–and Doubled

“According to stats released by BitTorrent at CES on Monday, the sharing platform has surged to 100 million monthly active users. How does that stack up against other digital content providers? BitTorrent now boasts more active users than Hulu and Netflix combined–and then doubled. The popular TV and movie providers have 30 million and 16.9 million users, respectively. BitTorrent has nearly half of iTunes’ users and YouTube’s monthly users in the U.S. It has about the same active users as viewers on Yahoo and Facebook combined.”

Video – Mobile Year in Review 2010
via Dangerously Irrelevant by Dr. Scott McLeod

“Below is a nifty video, Mobile Year in Review 2010, that highlights some of the changes we saw last year related to mobile phones and computing. My favourite statistic is this one:

Mobile phone apps downloaded
2009: 300 million
2010: 5 billion!”

Video is the next big challenge for public library circulation. Does anyone know of a collective effort to address the issue? Are there any great pilots out there? Are there opportunities for niche video markets like DIY video and foreign language films? At under $8 a month for unlimited video subscriptions, how much of the library-oriented market will migrate and how fast?

Stephen