Mass Market Video Editing
Last Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting article titled Outsourcing Your Life and in it described how, with the internet, even household tasks, such as having a math tutor, getting a softball team logo, or redesigning a kitchen can be accomplished by hiring a person in another county (outsourcing). Labor to complete these jobs can be found on sites such as guru.com, elance.com and rentacoder.com. This is all quite interesting and is somewhat related to a business idea I have been pondering: mass market video editing (actually, my wife gets credit as this was all her idea!).
For about the last two years, I have been producing my own videos, primarly from pictures and short video clips taken during voyages on my boat. These videos are then posted on my boat website and occasionally on my youtube.com account. While editing these videos, I played around with video editing software including Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker, Nero Movie Maker, and Adobe’s Premier Elements. Each has their own advantages and you can spend literally hours editing a very short three minute video. As I began to ponder how people who want a short video of a special event such as a wedding, a graduation or vacation, it dawned on me that there are many people who simply don’t have the skills or the time to put such a thing together. That’s where the recent Wall Street Journal Article came into play.
The author describes how one individual decided to create a tribute video in honor of his sister’s wedding. Some of his friends gave him recommendations of local people and the phone book contained a few specialists. However, this individual found a graphic artist in Romania to produce a splashy tw0-minute video with a space theme and “Star Wars” soundtrack, all for $59. It won raves at the wedding.
It appears that the video editing industry is extremely fragmented with many individuals who have turned hobby into a business. Perhaps there are significant players in the business but I don’t notice any of significance by searching on GOOG. Like the idea behind 1-800-GOT-JUNK, this may be an industry that can be quantified, branded and turned into a significant business. Smart companies are doing well by taking a fragmented industry and turning it into a big business. Take the development of logos. Ten years ago you could ask your director of marketing, call a friend (whose daughter is an excellent artist and can probably do it) or you can spend thousands of dollars going to a bake-off between major advertising agencies. Today that business is becoming more efficient, quantifiable and turned into a big idea with the likes of logoworks.com. For roughly $299, you can get a logo designed specifically for your company and the service is guaranteed. I don’t know if logoworks.com is outsourcing the labor to another country but they certainly could be doing it for pennies on the dollar.
Creating an online video editing portal that produces near-professional videos could be a very large business. Think of all the events you may want to capture into a powerful, emotional video with a song that sets the mood for the occassion. Think of all the time you will save by having someone else produce the video for you.
A business like this could be advertised very well on sites such as youtube.com and other video sites, as well as word-of-mouth and advertising at the end of every video produced. Outsourcing can come later – first prove the model and its scalability, then outsource it to save lots of dough. It could very well be a low risk business. What would you pay to have your pictures turned into a DVD and online video with your favorite music? Please post your comments here and live well!
This idea is whack! No really, post your comments here and let’s get a dialogue going…
I think it’s a great idea. I went to a family reunion last month – a 90th birthday celebration. They showed family photos on a sheet tacked to a wall. It would have been great to see those same photos in a video production with accompanying music. The family spent over $5000 for the party and would have gladly spent another $59 or so for a video that could be presented to the birthday girl during the event. Other applications are sports banquets (“We are the Champions”), weddings, funerals, anniversaries, life tributes, graduations, family trips or events. Realtors could use it to market a house or give as a gift to customers after a closing. The possibilities are unlimited. Marketing would be the challenge but once you had brand recognition, I think it would take off. People just don’t have the time (4-6 hrs)to get spooled up to make a video production. I think they would be willing to pay for this service if priced right. Good idea, Janice!
I read and kept sundays feature on outsourcing because of the opp it presents. Corporate America is outsourcing more and more when they understand how to and have an intelligent front end PMO to work with-cant just send stuff there it takes so much time to explain what you want you might as well do yourself. What does work is PMO on this end built around applications with offshore providing horsepower. Huge market, not restricted to small users- How many companies have still to do this plus how much outsourcing capability still out there.
During some internet research, I found these interesting sites that provide this service. Question is: do they really promote it and do they have scale?
http://www.dvdphotographs.com/?gclid=CI7D4NOVkIwCFQebIwod3iXt4g
http://www.photodex.com/eid8144/products/proshowgold/
http://jross-video.com/Prices/index.htm
http://www.pictureperfectslideshows.com/packagesandprices.htm
Initially finding talent for this type of work also does not appear difficult. One of my neighbors was so thrilled to learn Windows Movie Maker and made a fantastic wedding video of one of her friends in the first day! Then she said she loved it so much that she would like to do that sort of thing all day long. Wow!
I like it, however, the faster it grows…the bigger the headache will be with legal costs. Lets say you take the response with the ‘We are the champions’ theme for sporting events and the like. You start to develop an online biz that is growing and your small hobby is becoming a second biz. You splash it over YouTube to attract more potential viewers and advertise your Web site with some search optimization bucks….then you get a letter from EMI saying that you broken copyright laws by using Queen’s songs improperly and you must cease and desist immediately. You’ve moved out of that very gray area of ‘hobbyist’ to ‘professional’…where the lines are clear on what the laws are, and are not….
iPrint ran into some issues a generation ago (Web 1.0) with the logo scenario. One of the biggest costs in logo dev isn’t in the graphic arts – the model you are suggesting works great in the SMB market, but if you are a growing concern with greater aspirations that being the biggest XXXX or YYYY in your local tri-city area…then logo infringement may be something you have to address in the future. Not as likely as the video example above, but it does happen.
I am often involved with these things as a professional marketer, and it can be frustrating and costly for a well-recognized brand. I can only imagine for a small, growing business.
These ‘models’ have been discussed in the past to change the way the marketing/advertising world works, but the laws make it often cost prohibitive for them to grow orgainically…Kendall, you should talk to Bert over at Corbis. I’m sure he could talk your ear off about such things.