Video Content 'At the Beginning of the Future'

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Friday, February 17, 2012

Video Content at ‘the Beginning of the Future’ 

By STUART ELLIOTT

THE nascent state of the business of providing consumers video content — whether on television or on so-called second screens like computers, smartphones and tablets — is not unlike the nascent state of the television business six decades ago, when this newspaper ran an article carrying the headline “Coast-to-Coast TV Appears Certain.”

That was the message offered by speakers on Thursday in New York at the 2012 TV and Everything Video Forum presented by the Association of National Advertisers. The conference was sponsored by Google, whose YouTube division is a reason the video-content business is offering marketers opportunities amid the struggle of adapting to the most significant shift in media habits since, well, the dawn of television.

“It’s a head-spinning time to be in video,” said one speaker, Justin Evans, senior vice president for emerging media at Collective, an online advertising network. “I guess that’s what it feels like when you’re at the beginning of the future.”

Another speaker, Mike Proulx, agreed.

“It is early days,” said Mr. Proulx, senior vice president and director for digital strategy at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, whose new book, “Social TV,” explores how social media like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter seem to encourage consumers to watch television shows live so they can share comments and content.