Online Media Cultist

I’m not exactly sure how to define videoblogging (or vlogging) but I suppose it is episodic video content that can be found online. So, if I upload a video of my cat falling off the television to YouTube, that’s not a vlog, but if I upload a series of videos showing my cat falling off various pieces of technology in my home, that would be a vlog.

In all seriousness though, vlogging is still a relatively new area that is seeing tremendous growth, at least according to a State of the Vlogosphere report put out by Mefeedia. Whereas there were 617 vlogs in January of 2005, there are 20,913 only two years later in January of ‘07.

Extraordinary growth to be sure, but the overall current number of vlogs still pales in comparison to the many millions of “written content” blogs that exist today. Because of the explosion in YouTube’s and other video sharing sites’ popularity (built upon the now widespread penetration of broadband and other high speed Internet access), I think it’s safe to say that vlogging will see hyper-growth for years to come.

Now the real trick is how to make money from vlogs, a nut that more and more people and companies are trying to crack. The popularity of Ask a Ninja (which is basically a dude dressed up as a ninja riffing semi-spontaneously about various topics for comedic value), Rocketboom, and Digg Nation proves that particular vlogging “brands” can gather significant numbers of repeat viewers. The distribution platforms – from YouTube to Revver to iTunes to television sets to the millions of “regular” blogs – are nearly infinite. So the challenge is to get high quality (or popular, if you like) content in front of eyeballs and generate revenue from that.

The Ask a Ninja fellas hired United Talent Agency (UTA) and wound up signing a deal with Federated Media. So right now it seems the model that vloggers are taking are to translate online popularity into some kind of deal or contract.

That will change – vloggers will figure out a way to make money. It’s just a matter of when and how. Once that happens, the size of the vlogosphere will really take off.