Can YouTube Turn Market Dominance into a Killer Business Model?
In a recent TechCrunch post Eric Shonfeld raises questions about how exactly YouTube’s market dominance will or will not translate into a lucrative business model. According to comscore, 37 percent of all videos watched on the Internet are viewed on YouTube and the site attracts about half of the online video audience.
If you look at YouTube’s numbers, one thing is clear: It completely dominates online video.
And Forbes estimates
that YouTube will make $200 million in revenues this year, and $350 million next year.
Shonfeld contends that while this seems impressive, when we take into account eMarketer’s estimate that online video advertising will reach $1.35 billion this year, YouTube’s share of video advertising dollars comes out to only 15 percent (less than half of its share of videos watched).

What is the meaning behind this gap?
YouTube has built increasingly indisputable market dominance while under Google, where there has been little need to focus on maximizing revenues. The gap in YouTube’s share of videos watched and the site’s share of advertising revenue illustrates that growth in video ad dollars isn’t being driven by user generated content. And that is unlikely to change dramatically in the near future. Professional content—delivered to users interactively, with a focus on an engaging, “lean forward” user experience—will deliver the kind of high value impressions advertisers are used to buying offline. The real dollar value creation related to online video will come from professional content moving online in a way that meets consumer needs in terms of discovery, sharing, commenting and engagement.

