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In this week's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will discuss statistics related to user-generated content, including multimedia, and its affect on website traffic.

I have been researching this information for marketing purposes for my Online Community Magazine software. You should definitely check out a site called eMarketer.com - tons of great information there. I can't afford their paid subscription ($10,000 a year!), but I can afford their free newsletter.

I'm going to share the information on which today's business podcast is based in my marketing outline for why end-users should get a column, radio or tv show in an online magazine.

The magazine allows internet users to find your business more quickly when they search on the internet.

I. Search engine usage is second only to email when it comes to the most popular activities performed by Internet users (Pew Internet study).

II. Americans conduct more than 4 billion searches each month.

III. As more and more U.S. households not only hook up to the Internet, but go high-speed, their online activities will increase; thus reducing their exposure to television, print media, and other channels used by traditional advertisers. http://www.davidwilliams.biz/small-biz-news/2006-01-January.htm

By using audio and video, the site will bring more visitors to the site – not only as consumers, but as participants!

IV. Brian Haven, senior analyst with Forrester Research Inc, says “More than a third of adults say they view online video at least monthly; 45 percent of online youth ages 13 to 21 have watched streaming or downloadable videos in the past month. And it’s going to get more popular in the next two years.”

V. Haven also sees video search and niche video providers, such as sites that cater to online learners, as possible growth areas. http://www.entrepreneur.com/technology/newsandtrends/article168766.html (Nov 2006)

VI. According to eMarketer, spending on internet video advertising in the U.S. will jump from $775 million this year to $1.3 billion in 2008. That's an expected increase of 68 percent.

VII. In its November 2006 "Internet Video" report, eMarketer stated that small and midsize businesses could greatly benefit from this hot technology. Online video ads are cost-effective to create, and they can act as marketing materials or even educational tools. It's also easy to promote them through your existing online marketing campaigns, and you can give them more visibility through video search sites.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2007/may/177134.html

People want a truly interactive experience where they can contribute to the website. This means an increase in web traffic to any consumer content driven sites.

VIII. The content consumer becomes the creator. Led by the companies that started this revolution — YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Photobucket and others — eMarketer estimates that US user-generated content sites will earn $1 billion in 2007 and reach $4.3 billion in ad revenues in 2011.

IX. On a worldwide basis, user-generated content ad revenues will rise from $1.6 billion in 2007 to $8.2 billion in 2011.

You can now market your business products and services in the same level as major conglomerates for only a nominal fee.

X. "Gone forever are the days in which giant media conglomerates control the creation, distribution and monetization of content," says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new report, User-Generated Content: Will Web 2.0 Pay Its Way? "The media companies are still around and still wield considerable clout as a result of their content and their distribution networks, but today much of the power is shifting to the consumer."

XI. "This capability has put enormous power in the hands of the estimated 64 million Internet users in the US who created user-generated content in 2006 — and that number is expected to swell to 95 million by 2011," says Mr. Verna.

XII. Currently, the US dominates the space, but other geographies are expected to contribute increasing amounts of user-generated content over the next several years, with 238 million user-generated content creators worldwide in 2011, up from 118 million in 2006.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005071&src=article1_newsltr

Mr. McFarland: For one of the user-generated content publishers we're running on, about half of the content is not acceptable.

eMarketer: Does that worry you?

Mr. McFarland: A large portion of the video out there is like that TV show featuring stupid home videos. But most of that video was good for advertising because it had a big audience and the videos were humorous in most cases.

eMarketer: Are you looking forward to the appearance of more professionally produced online video content?

Mr. McFarland: The number of streams is constantly increasing. Every major publisher we've talked to has video now or has a plan to have it by the end of the year. TV advertisers have always had a big propensity to video.

eMarketer: What content is the big seller?

Mr. McFarland: Movie trailers, entertainment news. It's difficult to talk about because if you do a search on Google, there's video on every subject.

Follow the below link to see the charts.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005054&src=article2_newsltr

In today's podcast, I also invite you to respond to a few questions I have, including:

• What would it take for you to create video on your website? Would it take giving you the software and training materials, or would you only do it if you could outsource it?

So I'd love some feedback on today's show. I look forward to hearing your answers, because I need some outside perspective! (smile).

Have a great week, and remember to DO something about those ideas you have rolling around in your head!

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing & Online Community Magazines