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Bubble Days For Online Video

As the National Association of Broadcasters convention gets under way this week in Las Vegas, I can confidently report that the online video space is now in full-on bubble mode.

Streaming video provider Move Networks said today that it has raised $46 million in a C round of venture financing, bringing its total haul since its creation a little over a year ago to $91.3 million. That compares with $86.2 million raised by Brightcove, a Move competitor that provides video platforms to U.K. media companies, including ITV, Channel 4, and guardian.co.uk, and the $160 million that Yahoo paid for Maven Networks earlier this year.

This is to say nothing of Web video software providers like Miro, Joost, Veoh, and Babelgum, or the mobile segment which is getting equally jammed. Last month's CTIA Wireless show was crowded with mobile video providers like MediaFlo, an offshoot of Qualcomm. AT&T just announced that it will finally launch its mobile video service, based on MediaFlo's technology, next month -- a full year behind Verizon Wireless' V-Cast service.

Get the idea? There are too many companies, with too many venture dollars, chasing too few tangible opportunities in this sector. Already a few online video startups, like Instant Media, have gone bust. For all the hype, the Web video game still pretty much starts and ends with YouTube.

At the NAB show, much of the talk for the beleaguered broadcast TV industry will be about new forms of online TV. But the fact is nobody is really making money at this yet.

Don't get me wrong: Web video is definitely coming, and it's going to be huge. Hulu, the joint Web-video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., just said it has sold out its online ad inventory after being in business for just a month.

But a shakeout looms before the real party begins. Research and consulting firm Convergence Consulting Group just released a report saying that real profits from online video are years away, and advising cable companies and broadcasters not to quit their day jobs.

As one Web broadcasting exhibitor told me at CTIA, "For now, it's still mostly water-skiing squirrels."

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