Streaming Video More Popular Than Ever

When I think of streaming video I still sometimes have flash backs of a few years ago when I was connected on those crazy dial up connections!  Streaming wasn't fun back then.  But today with broadband taking over, it is quite different!  Many companies are starting to offer all kinds of shows and movies through streaming video.  And it will only grow from here.  It just makes sense that in the future everything we watch will be via the internet.  What's a TV?  Maybe we will still call the TV a TV but how it gets its content will be much different.  You can already start to see that…

However, the potential of new streaming video services — fast, full screen and in sharp resolution — is unleashing a torrent of movies and television shows, much of it aimed at narrowly defined audiences that can’t find niche programming even on cable systems with 500 or more channels.

The Independent Film Channel is streaming 22 short films called “Trapped in the Closet” by the R&B recording artist R. Kelly. The Jewish Television Network, a nonprofit television production and distribution company, is streaming music videos by Jewish performers, cooking shows and Israeli news programs. The network is also planning to stream religious services during the High Holy Days in September, the sort of broadcast that would be hard to find on mainstream television.

“There is extreme interest in streaming because it simplifies the process of getting video to the consumer,” said Ross Rubin, the director of industry analysis for the NPD Group, a market analysis company.

Streaming video, unlike downloads, never resides on a viewer’s computer. It usually cannot be replayed as a downloaded file can be, which is another reason that content creators like it.

To learn more on this subject, read the complete article below from The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/business/media/06stream.html?em&ex=1186632000&en=f5be43885bde277b&ei=5087%0A

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Gen X and Young Boomers View Stream Media

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The person watching entertainment programming on home computers and cell phones is not a teen or someone starting out in their career.  The steaming video viewer is Generation X and younger Boomers. The monthly access fee for the internet to phone feature has a natural tie to paycheck and disposable income- eliminating many teens and young 20s.

 

A study from comScore Networks found that “consumers between the ages of 35 and 54 years old accounted for more than 45 percent of all online video watched in the last few months… and 20% more likely to watch online video than the average Internet user.” This online video streams could be anything from product clips, music videos, movie trailers, to full news broadcasts. These results alter the stereotype that the younger crowd would be more likely to be streaming video and should alter website publishers marketing targets.

Streaming Media Moves Into Everyday Language /Life

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“Streaming,” a term moving quickly into the mainstream vernacular, means to access audio and video content.  “Steaming” is more like the faucet or water pipe; than the water.  Streaming is the conductor and not the current. Streaming media is the delivery method allowing the recipient to watch or listen to the information as it travels along a communications network. You may have ‘streamed’ and not even known it.  When you visit a news, site click and watch the brief video, you are streaming.  Streaming music is a fact of life. After surviving the free versus fee music download issues and the introduction of iPod, music streaming has traveled well along its adoption curve.   Video’s journey has just begun.  For example – The Women Online study reports that of the estimated 97 million females online in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />US, only 66 percent of them actually watch videos online.  Teens are lacking in cash but not in interest. Popular destinations for streamers include:  YouTube, MySpace and Google Video.

 

Teens are much more interested in the instant entertainment gratification and have more time than their moms.   Ipsos Insight reports that teens and young adults are the most likely to stream video online.  Three in four of all U.S. teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 have ever streamed digital video content online. The demographic of the typical video streamer skews younger and more likely to have higher incomes.  The financial link here is the need for a broadband connection to stream content. 

 

Shorter video clips with no cost are by far the most preferred type of video file accessed today. Three out of four digital video streamers have streamed (watched) short news or sports clips. Two out of three have streamed amateur or homemade video clips.  Adults are likely to view (stream) news clips of interest.