Video Over the Net: Another High Tech in the World

Many of you may remember when the Yahoo Video Search was unleashed on the world in May 2005. Almost indisputably, this event set the wheels in motion for what has become a cultural tidal wave for those of us in the Western world. In that very same month, iTunes began offering video for download, and CBS annnounced they would soon produce streaming news video by May of 2006. The very next month, June 2005, AOL, not to be outdone by Yahoo, launched the AOL Video Search. AOL pulled media from various partner sources such as CNN and AP, as well as SingingFish, a multimedia search engine owned by AOL. And in this very same month, the Slingbox debut came about, which allowed one to watch home TV on any internet-enabled device.

As one browses through the Web, that person could easily notice pages with sections of what appear as blurred photos inside a TV-like frame with a triangle in the middle that says, "click" or "play". After hovering your mouse pointer over it and then clicking, a streaming video would start playing on your monitor, showing a video clip about almost anything. One could watch online videos of someone washing his dog and getting suds all over; to a very funny guy singing and imitating Mariah Carey in an out-of-tune voice; or even find a gem of a rerun of that episode you've just missed from TV. More and more websites are now offering online video on their pages in a variety of formats, the more popular of which includes Flash Video, Windows Media, Quicktime, DivX or RealMedia.

With the onset of more affordable high-speed, broadband Internet access, online video became a worldwide revolutionary craze. With the 2005 launch of YouTube, and other major players like Yahoo Inc., iTunes, Scripps Network, Vidilife, Revver.com and even Google following suit, the online video craze literally exploded with 100 million videos posted daily on YouTube alone. This further ballooned on 2006, when big networks like CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, MTV and even Discovery Channel among others started joining in the fray, collaborating with YouTube, iTunes and other broadband channels. From there, more and more businesses, conglomerates and corporations started adopting this new technology, creating a new media wave for the future.

Another major advancement had nothing to do with video itself. Once the onset of broadband Internet hit the market, it enabled higher quality video to be sent over the net. With the increasing broadband rates the videos that were being introduced increased. Videos from corporate America to the child sending a video to his friend became all the rage.

Probably one of the biggest success in online video was YouTube. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[1] Before this, posting your video online was not very easy. YouTube, with it interface, gave everyday users access to a single source for easily posted videos online. within just a few minutes of setup and posting, millions of online users had access to your video. YouTube was such a success in the few years since it was first set in motion, recently Google purchased the service for approximately $1.65 Billion dollars.

There are many, many events that I haven't touched upon here that have lead up to the current popularity of online video. Nowadays, there are numerous avenues for user-generated video, YouTube still being the most popular. If you go to your browser and type the words "make your own video", you'll get hit with a plethora of websites where you can be taught to make a video of your own. In my humble opinion,video,whether streaming media or homemade, is here to stay.