Massive global expansion expected for online video

Online video is already attracting ad dollars, but some advertisers continue to believe that it’s a passing fad. However, a new forecast by ABI Research shows that online video is set to experience massive global expansion over the next few years.

by Helen Leggatt

In the year 2013, just five years from now, over 1 billion people across the globe will regularly watch video content of some sort on the Internet. That’s an awful lot of eyeballs for in-video ads.

If ABI Research’s forecast is correct around 14% of the world’s population will “squint at moving images on computer screens. That’s impressive”, observes Doug Caverly at WebProNews.

"The rapid expansion of broadband video creates opportunities across a number of market sectors," said Senior Analyst Cesar Bachelet in a recent announcement. "A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple and Zattoo."