As of December 30, 2008, the Vodpod Sitegeist includes 6239 sites. That means Vodpod members have collected videos from 6239 different video sites using our magic bookmark button.
Let me say that number again: 6239 sites. That’s roughly twice the number of video sites represented on Vodpod.com one year ago.
We just published an updated list of the top 100 sites from our Vodpod Sitegeist on embedcode.org and we took a moment to look more closely at the top 200 sites.
Four trends jump out:
Media Companies Now in the Game
Looking back at our Vodpod Sitegeist from last December (which we didn’t publish), Comedy Central was the only major media company represented in our Top 100.
How things have changed. Hulu, with programming from Fox, NBC and other networks, is most emblematic of this trend, and has moved to #13 on our Top 100 list. But in that list, we also now find Comedy Central (#15), NBC (MSNBC, mainly) at #25, Disney (ESPN, mainly) at #30, MTV/Viacom (#36), the Daily Show (#49, more Comedy Central), Reuters (#51), BBC (#52), and CBS (#55).
Rise of “Video Publishing” Services and Tools
Another clear change over the past year has been the growth of more specialized video publishing services and tools. These kinds of services now account for about 20% of our Top 100 (and indeed, Top 200) sites, and range from industrial-strength video hosting operations like Brightcove (#14) and Maven (#47) which power hundreds of different publishers, to newer, more specialized video tools and services such as Ustream (#53), Justin.tv (#63), overstream.net (#64), kyte.tv (#92), seesmic (#93), qik (#99) and animoto (#100).
Vertical Networks
From the very beginning, the Vodpod Sitegeist has been driven and dominated overall by specialized video sites and networks. About a third of the sites in our top 200 could be classified as specialized, niche verticals, and their predominance in our list becomes increasingly obvious as you move out the tail.
The top vertical sites on Vodpod — which may reflect the proclivities and interests of our community more than anything else — are for education, gaming, music (especially hip-hop sites), humor, anime, and sports (especially for European soccer).
Regional Networks
Another consistent trend in our Top 100 list has been the presence of regionally-focused video sharing sites. Fifteen of our top 100 sites, and forty of our top 200, are YouTube-like sites for specific countries or regions.
A couple of other random notes and observations:
Blip.tv (#5) and Vimeo (#6) have become pretty firmly established in the top echelon of video sharing sites on Vodpod.
Viddler looks like an up-and-comer, now at #23.
DailyMotion is now a firm #2; a year ago, Myspace occupied that slot.
Filed under: News
[...] I wrote on the Vodpod blog last week, some media companies are getting in the game. Viacom has at least begun making strides [...]
[...] I wrote on the Vodpod blog last week, some media companies are getting in the game. Viacom has at least begun making strides [...]
[...] been about six month since we last gave an update on the Vodpod Sitegeist — that is, the number and type of video sites from which our members [...]
[...] been about six month since we last gave an update on the Vodpod Sitegeist — that is, the number and type of video sites from which our members [...]