Video is eating the world
Building the developer stack for video
In 2020, U.S adults spent 209 minutes (3 hours and 29 minutes) per day consuming online video content. Fast forward to today, that number is not as high but still remains significant with the average time being roughly 100 minutes. Video has become more important than ever. It’s rare to see any company shy away from incorporating video as form of communication. Nearly every platform/app that we interact with has a video component to it. However, not every platform started out that way. Even for a huge recording artist like Doja Cat, her brand has been heavily dependent on her viral music videos and TikTok presence.
Trends in Video:
User generated content (UGC) - is any content that is created by a platform’s users, not the platform itself. Depending on the platform or app, user generated content can come in the form of audio, images, writing, and video. In the case of video, the most prominent example would Youtube. Youtube, an online video sharing platform, has a plethora of UGC examples. Users can upload and share videos pertaining to product reviews, unboxing, reaction, live streams, etc. An even better example would be TikTok. TikTok is a powerful example because by design it encourages users to create not just consume. With Tiktok, users can produce short form content and share it with the world. The videos grab your attention and motivate you to try & recreate whatever gimmick is presented. A common example would be dances. The video below shows a compilation of people who are recreating a popular dance choreography called ‘Do It to It’. Who created this dance? I have no idea. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that someone did in fact create this and inspired/motivated millions of other users to do the same.
Live Streaming/ Live Content - Consumers are increasingly interacting with the world through live streaming and live content. Like Tiktok, live streaming platforms rely heavily on user generated content. Live streaming platforms like Twitch, have revolutionized the gaming industry and birthed a new generation popular gaming personalities like Ninja, Auronplay, and Rubius. As for shopping, platforms like Whatnot, Popshop have combined the worlds of live streaming, social media, and e-commerce into one. Shoppers can tune in live to see their favorite item/collectable get sold, auction style. Supergreat has launched a live product view platform specifically for beauty and makeup products. An interesting aspect of live shopping/content is that it’s a low cost marketing engine that gives brands the equivalent exposure they would get on social platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
Over-The-Top/Streaming - Netflix was our first introduction to the world of streaming film and television. Its popularity has grown so big over the years that it has paved the way for traditional media broadcasters to build their own subscription-based, streaming platform with native content (Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, ESPN+, ). The growing internet, smart TV, smart phone, and 5G infrastructure has fueled the growth of OTT over the years. OTT video jumped 22.8% in 2021, to $79B in revenues. 1
By the end of 2022, 240.7 million people in the US will be OTT video service users. Future of Work & Education - The Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to shut down and reside to living a remote lifestyle. As a result, the adoption of video conferencing software blew up. Zoom acted as the video conferencing platform that kept the world connected during the lock down period. Zoom’s daily users spiked to 200 million in March 2020 during the heat of the pandemic. In the post-Covid world, some predicted that the explosion of video chat would dramatically slow down. Yet, it seems that virtual modes of communication and collaboration is now the new normal. Solutions are continuously being built around remote work that will foster collaboration & productivity. Examples include; Duckly - Video collaboration tool for developers. Remotion - A video app designed for remote collaboration.
Developer Tools for Video
Mux - Video Streaming API
Mux is an API-first video platform designed to make world-class video streaming and analytics possible for every development team. Mux handles the encoding, storage, and delivery. They also offer a data API product that enables developers to monitor their streaming performance with just a few lines of code. (Series D, backed by a16z, Coatue, Accel, Susa Ventures)
A video streaming API can be broken down into three core services:
Encoding: Video compression so it’s viewable over the web.
Storage: The API provider will usually store a copy or a master of your videos.
Delivery: Video delivery is optimized through CDNs so your users get the best experience.
It essentially takes care of the backend technical decisions so you can focus on building the product. These APIs do not require you to use a specific player or CMS, giving you full control over both.
I believe we will see a future where streaming and live video is no longer synonymous with Netflix or Youtube. We’re seeing more these applications touch areas like e-commerce (Whatnot, Popshop Live) , education (Udemy, Coursera), gaming (Twitch, SteamTV), entertainment (Moment House) fitness (Restream, Peloton), and more.
Daily - Video conferencing/WebRTC
Daily is a developer platform built on WebRTC, which allows developers to build real-time video and audio calls right in the browser. (Series B, backed by Renegade Partners, Tiger Global, Haystack, Scribble Ventures)
Daily is baked into the idea that the future of work & education is distributed/remote. There are quite a few use cases for Daily:
Teaching and/or coaching
Customer support and/or demo calls
Collaboration on code, documents, etc.
video conferencing with healthcare providers (doctors, therapists, etc)
Editframe - Video Composition & Editing
Editframe offers a comprehensive suite of tools across the frontend and backend to rapidly decrease the time it takes to ship video features. With Editframe, you can add video personalization features to consumer applications, power post-production workflows, and much more. (Pre-Seed, Backed by Goat Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Browder Capital)
Twelve Labs - Video Search API
Twelve Labs Video Search API is an AI-powered video search solution that extracts information such as movement, objects, sound, text on screen, and speech from your videos and allows you to find specific moments using everyday language. (Seed, Backed by Index Ventures, Position Ventures, Expa)
Developers using Twelve Labs Video Understanding API have access to the following key capabilities:
Relevance: Find the exact moment you need within your video library using a full text-based search query.
Intuitive: Integrate more than twenty state-of-the-art deep learning models into your applications in three simple steps.
Speed: Receive your search results within seconds.
Scalability: With Twelve Labs, your applications rely on a cloud-native distributed infrastructure that can handle thousands of simultaneous indexing and search requests.
We’re still early…
Compared to other verticals like fintech/payments, the market for video infrastructure is still in its infancy. There are about a handful of developer tools built for this space. I’m betting that this will change in the next decade to come as more video is consumed and embedded into both B2B & consumer applications. If you’re building something within the video infrastructure space, I’d love to chat. You can reach me on Twitter @nkechiiregbulem.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2022/06/21/us-streaming-video-market-tops-29-billion-but-plenty-of-challenges-remain/?sh=354ac6794a0a