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educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology

Mashable ran a poll yesterday (”The Daily Poll: Live Video – Who Will Win?“) to gather reader opinions on the topic of which live streaming offering will come out ahead when the dust settles. Not unexpectedly, YouTube came out on top - by a MASSIVE amount (171 out of 234 votes, or 73%).

What is incredibly surprising though was what polled as number two: Someone Else.

The margin between the last 4 choices was not large by any means, but with Yahoo! Live and Ustream.tv among the contenders you would have thought that at least one of them would have won out over none of the above. The fact this isn’t the case presents a puzzling question about user perceptions on the current state of play with online video.

As I commented on their recap post this evening (”YouTube Will Win Live Video?“), I’d be quite interested in knowing whether respondents had someone specific in mind when selecting this option, whether they doubted anyone could effectively capture and maintain the market lead, or perhaps were hoping none of the above would come out ahead.

With the exception of perhaps Microsoft, the only other possible entrants into this field that come to mind would be from the realm of proprietary webconferencing software. Most notably this includes Adobe, whose Connect software offers the clearest video and audio quality I’ve seen so far.

While they do currently offer hosting options, Connect’s suite of whiteboard and desktop sharing tools (among others) places it firmly within the category of enterprise business solutions. That’s such a far cry from YouTube’s target market, that there is virtually no overlap in the user base.

All other providers that I can think of have made no visible moves towards this market. Skype might well have the server capacity, but doesn’t seem to have the inclination; Elluminate already offers hosted web conferencing, but is well and truly geared towards the eLearning niche.

The point being, I cannot think of a single company (high profile or otherwise) that is both capable and interested in tackling this market. In terms of the meaning of “Someone Else”, this either means the respondents didn’t think anyone can sustain the market, or they just don’t want it to be YouTube.

References:

• “The Daily Poll: Live Video – Who Will Win?“, Mashable, 29 February 2008
• “YouTube Will Win Live Video?“, Mashable, 29 February 2008

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 9:29 pm and is filed under web communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.