At CES this year, the hardware companies were popping champaign corks. Hallelujah TV is SAVED! Ok, consumers didn't much like 3d - but 4k is going to sell tons of flat screens and draw families back to gather round the electronic hearth. That's the buzz from the show floor.
Meanwhile - out in the real world - consumer behavior is changing dramatically. The two newest TV networks (and the two fastest growing networks) weren't even on the video playing-field a year ago. The fast moving new entrants are Facebook and Twitter.
So, take a moment and look at these powerful facts coming out of the emerging Social TV networks.
For the first time ever, Facebook users uploaded more videos directly to Facebook than they did via sharing from YouTube videos. This according to new data from Socialbakers, a social media analytics company.
ComScore reported Facebook growth relative to YouTube's market share. Facebook grew 38.5% year-over-year to 491 million in September 2014. Views across Google's sites were up just 4.8% to 831 million.
Why is this happening? Facebook automatically plays FB hosted video in the newsfeed. YouTube videos sit on the page unless you press play.
Socialbakers CEO Jan Rezab told Business Insider that Facebook videos were simply "more natural" to share and interact with than YouTube videos. They show up right in your news feed, which makes them easy to see and share.
So while YouTube embeds don't play in the stream, hosted Facebook videos do. And folks are starting to notices. And revenue is part of the game for sure, as Facebook launched autoplay video ads. And Facebook has increased mentions of the importance of video in quarterly earnings calls.
Meanwhile, over at Twitter - TV is increasingly moving to the center stage. Jason Calacanis, the outspoken blogger and startup maven, posted a startling blog with the bold prediction: "within 18 months of releasing their YouTube competitor (coexister?), Twitter will at least double their monthly users, double their time per user, and triple their revenue."
Calacanis made waves when he posted the controversial blog some months go calling out YouTube for not sharing revenue equitably with creators. Saying in part: "I stopped working with YouTube because I felt the 55/45 revenue split was not sustainable (see: I ain't gonna work on YouTube's farm no more)."
Calacancis says that 2015 is the year video will go "supernova" at Twitter - and make all their revenue dreams come true.
And he makes his case with 6 reasons (shared here).
- Most celebrities, influencers, journalists, business leaders, and world leaders do not have YouTube channels.
And, just to make sure you know where Jason sands on Twitter -he added this to his post: "If you're an activist investor and you think Dick isn't doing an outstanding job you're a total idiot. Growing a groundbreaking service like Twitter -- with the world's most important people engaged -- takes time. Like years.Seriously, sometimes I think 'Activist investor' is French for "has no f-ing clue how complex this sh@#4t is."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said "Video is a very big priority" during the company' earnings call for Q3. "A lot of the content that people share will be video" said Zuck. In September Facebook said people averaged 1 billion video views on Facebook each day.
So don't shed a tear for YouTube, they're doing just fine. But at Facebook and Twitter - TV is in the future and the future is coming up fast.
That's where the big change is going to come from.