Online video has gained a great deal of ground over the past few years, and that will not be slowing down as we head into the new year. In fact, we’re likely to see greater and more efficient use of online video by e-commerce providers and marketers. Yaniv Axen, Co-founder and CTO of SundaySky, a video platform provider, shared some predictions with WebProNews as to where the industry is headed.
Axen’s predictions deal with scalability, automation, mobile, multi-channel, and personalization.
"Online videos prove effective, however most marketers still find it difficult to place all products, pricing, reviews, etc. into videos," says Axen. "Implementing scalability will allow all products to be placed in videos within minutes. This will also increase traffic through video SEO."
"Currently, videos are template-based and database-driven," he adds. "Video production is lagging behind and most are manually produced and therefore often outdated. In 2011, videos will begin the automation process, increasing production rate and timeliness."
The choices that consumers have for viewing online video are increasing all the time. This makes it harder and harder to know where to focus your efforts.
"Brand marketers will utilize the multi-platform trait of video to communicate better with the growing audience of mobile shoppers," says Axen. "HTML5 will enable video display on iPads and iPhones."
He adds, "Videos are starting to go beyond the website – in newsletters, affiliate marketing and social media etc."
Look at what Microsoft is doing with email. This could lead to some interesting things in itself.
"Brands identified the value of personalization by deploying solutions like personalized recommendations," says Axen. "Through the introduction of automated video solutions, the personalization trend will be transferred to video: each user will get a different video, created on-the-fly, reflecting special offers based on his past interaction with the website."
We are still in the early stages of online video indeed, and it will be quite interesting to look back this time next year and see how far the industry has come.