"How to" Sites Prove Content is, indeed, King!

We've heard it said so many times, but if what we're seeing in digital media is any indication, it is that content is, truly, king.

Not just any content, mind you, but good, quality content. What I am referring to primarily is online video content, which once was a novelty on sites but has now become a commodity staple on even the simplest of sites.

For a while, YouTube was the clear leader in the distribution of online video content, content which was user generated - comical episodes of life, zany stuff, stuff you would want to share with your high school or college buddies...

But not stuff an advertiser would necessarily want to be associated with. These videos were captured in crappy resolution, quality that was even worse than the clips shown on "America's Funniest Home Videos".

These days, advertisers who want to use online video as an advertising medium are looking to a variety of online media players with proprietary libraries of high quality, "semi-professional" content that looks just a grade below studio quality. A category of companies with content of this sort is the emerging "how to"vertical of sites. These sites provide content explaining everything from practical day-to-day things like "how to tie your shoelaces" to the more philosophical as in "how to find meaning in your life".

These so called "knowledge" sites are quickly becoming the next generation of Wikipedia - informational and instructional content captured in video format. Some of the larger names in the space include VideoJug, Howcast, ExpertVillage, WonderHowTo, and a whole host of others with a similar format.

As with Wikipedia, the content provided on these sites is evergreen as opposed to the fleeting nature of user-generated content (UGC). In addition, this content is informative, instructional, and oftentimes the precursor to action in the person viewing the content. After all, the viewer in most cases was seeking a solution to a problem he wanted to solve before visiting the "knowledge" site and is likely to decide upon a course of action soon after watching the content.

As a result, consumer product advertisers love advertising on this medium. For some, the content provided by the "knowledge" site is endemic to what they are selling - Hermès sponsoring a clip on tying a Windsor knot on your necktie or IKEA sponsoring a clip on assembling the new SKANDIA bedside table (we all know how confusing those language-neutral illustrations can be sometimes!).

For others, the content is less endemic but nonetheless content that CAN have relevance to a broader base of advertisers and audience bases than UGC could ever. As an example, clips on "how to ask a guy out on a date" can be great fodder for sites that are more teen-oriented or with a highly concentrated female fan base. "How to put on the right amount of mascara" might be relevant for any one of the beauty sites that are cropping up these days, targetting the ever self-conscious young adult female crowd.

A lot of these sites, too, have put in the money and time to develop a cost-effective production platform that allowed them to create this content in the first place. This isn't movie studio quality production, but production that is a lot more sophisticated than your typical UGC producer and is of a quality acceptable for most advertisers. As more and more advertisers begin to realize that they will have to follow their audience base and begin to advertise in video on the Internet, so they (or their agencies) will need to partner with those that can produce such content quickly and cheaply. Maybe not so much the blue chip advertisers like P&G or the auto makers, but those that are local or regional to the market they're in - where the production cost becomes a greater factor.

So where am I going with this? In the future, when you need to find out how to cook seafood risotto, you'll visit a "Videowiki", venture into the "Food and Drink" section, click on "seafood risotto" and watch a 2 minute cooking lesson sponsored by "The Food Network". The actors and actresses in these clips will be normal actors and actresses, perhaps sometimes big-time celebrities endorsing the product, but what it won't be is your next-door neighbor cooking in the kitchen with only his boxers on.

- Closet Digital Media Investment Banker