It seems that niche programming is the way that internet video is heading. Firstly, an online video channel is being used by scientists to open up dialogue about their fields of research and lives. The series is another example of a video series that appeals to a small, but dedicated market that would probably not otherwise become the focus of attention.

Publicized on the New York Times, the series is called Cambridge Nights: Conversations About a Life in Science and is hosted by César Hidalgo, a Cambridge physicist. The program has support from two scientists at the famous MIT Media Lab which has made its name with a number of innovations in the field of multimedia and technology.

The project is very much a product of its environment, as Cambridge and the area is filled with academic research institutions which make rich pickings for interview subjects. We can imagine that if he carried out his research in most other parts of the country, he’d be faced with the usual number of football fans, Party Poker enthusiasts and film buffs, without quite so many scientific minds to probe. Hidalgo explained to the NYT that when he arrived in the area he discovered the intellectual hot house that was the Cambridge area and thought a video series that had not been dumbed down would find both the perfect subjects, and also a responsive market too.

This all ties in with the statement from senior YouTube executive, Robert Kyncl who told the New Yorker recently that the site was looking to deepen it’s niche programming. He explains that niches are more immersive than general programming and the internet has the advantage for advertisers and program makers of being ‘on demand’, so they don’t have to program 24/7. You just need a few hours of content and your target audience will be happy. For YouTube, this is the direction they intend to head.

It was a massive year for online video in 2011, which saw our community’s content from Spidvid exceed 1 million views on UnleashVideo in 2011.

This is my 4th straight year making predictions for the online video space. If you want to see how my predictions fared in other years here’s 2009, 2010, and last year’s 2011 list. For my 11 predictions last year, I rate them a 8/11 which is pretty decent. Let’s see how I fare this year.

12 online video predictions for 2012

1. Yahoo invests $250M into original video content – Yahoo has a new CEO and seems to be getting more and more focused on online video. I think that Yahoo takes a big step towards re-establishing their corporate identity and it’s in the video space.

2. Standards for views and ad creatives are finally implemented – There is still lots of confusion as to what constitutes a video view online, and 2012 will be the year where a standard will be set. Some people think that if a video starts that’s a view, while others think a whole video must be watched for it to count as a view, clarity will come in 2012. Every video ad company seems to have their own formats but this will end as ad standards will be put in place for video, much like display banners abide by now.

3. Mobile video explodes – I’ve been predicting this for a few years and every year mobile video traffic seems to double it’s viewing audience thanks to increased penetration of iPhones, Android based phones, and tablets.

4. Apple’s “iTV” makes OTT mainstream – There are a bunch of great “over the top” products out there for your TV including; Apple TV, Roku, Boxee, and others, but as Steve Jobs says they are just hobby businesses well at least for Apple to date. But in 2012 Apple is going to be releasing TV’s in the 30″-50″ range which will sell like crazy to Apple’s raving fans, and these iTV’s will dramatically increase consumer’s use of iTunes for purchasing video content.

5. Social TV - More and more people are watching TV and sending out tweets about what they’re watching, their perspectives on what they’re seeing, and engaging with other passionate viewers. Social TV will be huge in 2012 as Twitter and Facebook create tighter relationships with the TV networks.

6. HTML 5 – This seems to be the format of choice long term even though it’s still in its infancy right now compared to flash. This format is much more dynamic than all the others and will ultimately become #1, but not until 2015. HTML 5 will see more growth than ever before in 2012.

7. YouTube will buy a company – The world’s largest video sharing site continues to build out its ecosystem both through building features internally, and acquiring technologies externally. YouTube is growing up and is stepping outside of Google’s shadow, and 2012 will be the biggest year ever for YouTube. If you are tired of YouTube coverage now, you haven’t seen anything yet!

8. Hulu gets acquired – There was a ton of speculation that Hulu would be acquired throughout 2011 but it never happened, but in 2012 it will. I’m going to double down on my Yahoo prediction and say that Yahoo buys Hulu to become a serious online video player.

9. Netflix gets acquired – There was also lots of speculation that Netflix would be acquired in 2011, but again much like Hulu nothing happened. Netflix has seen its subscriber base and stock price dramatically decrease since its pricing model changed, but it’s still a strong brand in the streaming video space. I’m going to call Netflix is sold, but not at a price that its CEO, board of directors, or investors are overly happy with.

10. Google Plus delivers big views – Facebook and Twitter drive huge video views as social video emerges. Google Plus’s social network is exploding and as a result it will become a major player in delivering video views, especially to its toddler site, YouTube.

11. More online video stars get movie deals – Famous Fred of YouTube got a deal with Nikelodeon to star in “Fred the Movie” which did quite well from what I heard. There will be more of these kind of deals happening in 2012, mainly to the YouTube partners who have strong character personalities like Fred possesses.

12. Remote video collaboration takes off – With more and more cloud based video editing platforms emerging, along with matchmaking sites like Spidvid emerging, 2012 will be a year that many video creators and talent open up to the possibility of bringing on external talent to their teams and using new tools to help manage those projects.

If you have a 13th prediction to add then please add it below!

Cheers to 2012 which will be online video’s biggest year yet!

Other online video predictions can be found on Media Post, VidCompare, ReelSEO, TubeFilter, New Media Minute, and Streaming Media.

With each passing month, online videos are getting more creative, more fun to watch, and less expensive to produce which bodes well for our Spidvid community. Below are 5 remarkable viral videos from September. There are dozens of others likely just as deserving as these, so if you have a favorite please include the link in the comments below.

1. Rhian Touches Herself – What a brilliant move to campaign for men getting tested for testicular cancer. I’m sure that Rhian had many guys grabbing their balls, but for what reason?! Video production takeaway: Sex sells, and hot women get attention, use them when appropriate in your entertaining videos.

2. Puss In Boots – The Cat Haz Swagger – The Old Spice TV commercials were huge viral sensations. This video isn’t an ad for Old Spice, but rather, features a co-star from the Shrek series, Puss. Antonio Banderas would make a great cat, but in this video his character promotes the upcoming movie Puss In Boots. Video production takeaway: Cats are huge stars online, but getting them to do what you want isn’t always easy. So keep a quality camera close by at all times because you never know when that magical moment will happen. If that doesn’t work then animate a cute cat and give the kitty a sexy voice over.

3. World Greatest Drag Race – If you love sports cars and racing then this video is for you! Motor Trend reserved an airport strip and put 11 of today’s hottest cars (including a Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Lotus, Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Evora, Corvette, Mustang, and Laguna) in a row to see which one was fastest. Well shot from many different angles with lots of car candy, enjoy. Video production takeaway: Always think big, and tap into people’s passions.

4. McFly’s Closet – Nike recently launched a campaign called Back To the Future. 1,500 shoes are being auctioned off with the money going to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons disease research. Check out these cool glowing kicks! Video production takeaway: Sell the future.

5. Carlsberg stunts with bikers in cinema – Beer maker, Carlsberg pulls off a genius stunt in Belgium with 148 bikers in a movie theater. Some innocent couples want to take their seat, but the room is filled with not so friendly looking gentlemen… how will they react? Video production takeaway: Reaction videos can be massive hits, just look at what Ashton Kutcher did with his TV show Punk’d.

Create better quality video entertainment by collaborating with our talented community, be sure to get a Spidvid profile and if you need any help at all just ask us!

With each passing month, online videos are getting more creative, more fun to watch, and less expensive to produce. Below are 5 remarkable viral videos from May 2011. There are dozens of others likely just as deserving as these, so if you have a favorite please include the link in the comments below.

1. Mom Cat Hugs Kitten During a Nightmare – Some of the top ever viral videos on YouTube are of kittens. Chances are you’ve seen a kitten get rather active in its sleep, now here’s how to comfort him or her during a scary nightmare. Over 20 million views so far! Video production takeaway: shoot video whenever you can, you never know when you’ll capture something remarkable that the world will awe over!

2. Hugh Hefner Hangs Out In a Secret Bar – What man on this earth wouldn’t like to be Hugh Hefner, if only for a day! He recently teamed up with the beer maker Bavaria to show his sexy normal life, and the life he goes to when he needs to get away from it all. Video production takeaway: beautiful women and beer usually do well in videos.

3. Greatest Marriage Proposal EVER – A guy puts together an elaborate marriage proposal Hollywood style when he gets his girlfriend’s brother to take her to a theater, shows a short clip of her and him together on the big screen, then makes a grand entrance to propose in person. This video has been seen almost 16 million times now. Video production takeaway: viewers like seeing well orchestrated events that take other’s breaths away.

4. Jetman Flies Over Grand Canyon – On May 7th 2011 Yves Rossy, nicknamed the “Jetman” managed to fly over one of world’s most beautiful natural wonders, the Grand Canyon. And he did this using only a jet powered wing strapped to his back! Video production takeaway: stunts are a huge audience attractor, but keep it safe people!

5. Otter Mimics Boy – Many of us grew up with cats and dogs, and while playing with them was certainly fun, it is nothing like the experience this kid has with an otter at the San Diego zoo. Video production takeaway: animals and kids playing together are two key elements for viral success.

Top video created by our Spidvid community in the month of May - “The M Word” is a hilarious story about a college girl bringing home her boyfriend for the very first time to meet her parents. Talk about making a bad first impression! Video production takeaway: viewers love randomness, why do you think that the Family Guy TV show is so popular?!

Create better quality video entertainment by collaborating with our talented community, be sure to get a Spidvid profile and if you need any help at all just ask us!

With each passing month, online videos are getting more creative, more fun to watch, and less expensive to produce. Below are 5 remarkable viral videos from April 2011. There are dozens of others likely just as deserving as these, so if you have a favorite please include the link in the comments below.

1. Poolball - The world`s largest pool table is on display where soccer (football) and billiards are played together. These two sports work so well together so perhaps poolball should become a sport of its own, check out the highlights of an intense game below.

2. Skittles Touch: Cat – A cool yet kind of creepy interactive video where you touch the screen and become part of the video personally. Be sure to get one of your 10 fingers ready before you click the play button below, and taste the rainbow.

3. David Beckham Makes 3 Amazing Kicks – While on the beach in California shooting a commercial for Diet Pepsi, David Beckham shows why he’s the world’s most famous soccer player. 3.2 million video views to date since April 7th!

4. Little Thor – A little toddler dresses up as Thor and decides to show off his super powers to his much horrified parents. Little Thor has been seen almost 1.7 million times since its release on April 19th.

5. Best Of a Normal Day – Some normal people doing some extraordinary tricks! This video has viral written all over it, and must have taken countless hours to create.

Top video created by our Spidvid community in the month of April – The Hangover Fairy is there whenever you have a bad hangover that just won`t go away. Rumor: An entire Hangover Fairy web series will be created this summer and fall, in collaboration between Spidvid, these filmmakers and our community, and the After Party energy drink company.

The Hangover Fairy – After Party from Blackened Irish Films on UnleashVideo

Create better quality video entertainment by collaborating with our talented community, be sure to get a Spidvid profile and if you need any help at all just ask!

I’ve long been fascinated with infographics from a visual, information, and content intake perspective. I figured it was time to create an infographic for Spidvid because our community has been relatively active and has accumulated some decent statistics over the past few months. So I published a tweet (@Spidvid on Twitter) asking for a talented designer to collaborate with us in creating one, and Joshua Murphy of element3media kindly reached out and designed the Spidvid infographic art that you see below.

This is just the beginning of our community’s successes, and vision to become the world’s largest open and collaborative filmmaking ecosystem ever built in the history of mankind. If you need some sort of help/advice on your short film or web series, or some seed funding to develop your content, then please reach out to us and let’s discuss how we can partner up!

Cheers to infographics, innovation within the online video space, and especially to our community for producing remarkable video entertainment for the world’s audience to enjoy and share.

Stay updated on everything Spidvid by getting our blog delivered to your email inbox, or read it in your favorite RSS reader. And if you don’t have a Spidvid profile yet, then create one now!

With each passing month online videos are getting more creative, more fun to watch, and less expensive to produce. Below are 5 remarkable viral videos from February. There are dozens of others likely just as deserving as these, so if you have a favorite please include the link in the comments below.

1. Mario Kart Is Back – Mario Kart was always a favorite video game of mine growing up, so when I saw this real life version it had to be on this list! Strap yourself in and enjoy the ride!

2. Christina Aguilera Messes Up National Anthem At Super Bowl 2011 – OK so she got most of the words right, but messed up some. I would like to know how many people actually noticed on the day of the game after all the tailgating parties that were attended!

3. Playable Angry Birds Birthday Cake – I’m a former Angry Birds addict, I’ll admit it. Seeing this kid get to play Angry Birds as his birthday cake sure beats the traditional routine of blowing out the candles.

4. College Pep Band Plays Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls On Parade” – This song used to be on repeat back when I actually used a CD player! To hear a pep band play this so well leaves me speechless.

5. Charlie Sheen Bi-Winning Dubstep – In case you haven’t heard the word, Charlie Sheen is on Twitter now. Here is a recent interview with him that’s been edited to make him look even crazier than he already is, if that’s even possible!

If you don’t yet follow our Twitter page you should because we are always looking to provide value to our followers with video production tips, resources, advice, and other 140 character golden nuggets. Here’s our best over the last 7 days.

• How To Increase Video Views via Daisy Whitney’s New Media Minute
• Attention actors: How To Beat Audition ‘Jitters’ via ACTORSandCREW
• How To Promote Your Videos – Collaboration Edition via Spidvid
• www.mobygratis.com is a useful site for no budget filmmakers
• Hey @CharlieSheen you’ve joined Twitter, now you should join http://Spidvid.com! You would be instantly the top actor in our community
• The Basics of Image Resolution: Video 101 via OnlineVideo.net
• The same holds true today! Steven Spielberg On Collaborating With Actors (1978) via ACTORSandCREW
• The Art of Indie Film Financing via ifp.org
• Production Tip of the Day: Great advice and case study for how to launch and market a new web series via DIALOGIK
• 7 Video Opportunities You May Have Overlooked via Jim Louderback
• How Has the iPad Affected Filmmakers and Creatives? via NoFilmSchool
• Want to film with your iPhone 4 under water? Here’s the case you need to do it with this Life Proof product
• Production Tip of the Day: The Basics of Editing Using Final Cut Pro via YouTube
• Focus Isn’t Just for the Camera – learn how to focus on your web series while you work at your day job via Spidvid
• Smart Tips – Solve A Problem For Viewers
• Production Tip of the Day: Tech Tips for Corporate Video
• Like the Napoleon Dynamite movie? Then you may want to donate to lead actor Jon Heder’s KickStarter project via KickStarter
• SXSW is streaming more live video online this year
• Do you like film and corn? Then you may be interested in the Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival
• LOVE THIS! Pro Tips from The Farrelly Brothers: Special Partners Project
• Have you seen Sheen’s Korner yet with @CharlieSheen and his friends? http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen. Love it Charlie, you’re the man!
• How to Make Videos Viral with Comedy and Celebrity via examiner

This week’s top video produced by Spidvid’s community is by Joel Bryant with the unofficial “Pulled Pork” music video! Watch it below and be sure to share it with all your pulled pork friends.

Pulled Pork By Deven Green And Joel Bryant from Joel Bryant on UnleashVideo

It seems like with each passing month it brings with it more and more interesting viral videos. We have posted our five favorite viral videos below for September. Feel free to add yours below in the comments with a video link, or hit us up on Twitter, or Facebook.

1. The 200 yard golf gong shot

These golfers are masters of ball control. Watch below as they try to hit a 9″ gong 200 yards away by skipping their balls across a lake. Incredible, even Tiger Woods himself would be impressed!

2. OK Go – White Knuckles

OK Go are perhaps the most creative band on the planet today. They have had many viral video hits over the past few months including their newest one, “White Knuckles”. A great use of dogs too, check it out below.

3. Herding Cats

Our viral video list wouldn’t be complete without a cute animal one. Ikea brought in 100 cats and released them throughout one of their stores in the UK. Watch as the cats hang out with each other, get silly and wild, and of course take cat naps.

4. Future of Screen Technology

If you think you already have too many video screens in your house, office, and in your hand you haven’t seen anything yet. Check out what could be the future of screens within our lives. This is both remarkable and scary at the same time.

5. 2 Guys 600 Pillows

This video is all backwards which is a pretty interesting concept, and fun to watch. If you are sleepy right now you may want to avoid watching this video as you may search out your own comfy pillow and need a nap. Office workers you’ve been warned!

Be sure to subscribe to our blog for October’s top viral videos, interesting video production posts along the way, and stay on top of new developments within Spidvid’s community as well. Get the Spidvid blog delivered to your inbox, or via RSS.

As the incredible summer of 2010 nears its end, many of you wonderful people reading this may have missed some remarkable online videos in August. We have done our best to entertain and amaze you with five videos sure to make your summer a little bit cooler. If you missed July’s viral videos, be sure to check them out too.

1. The YouTube Movie

Next month “The Social Network” movie based on Facebook’s massive success, will hit theaters across the world. There have been a few good “mocumentaries” created since, including YouTube’s as featured below, and Twitter’s which can be seen here.

2. The Heineken Tube

Who doesn’t love kicking back in the hot summer with a nice cold beer?! Heineken captured this experience exceptionally well with their beer travelling through a house in a special tube to deliver the beverage. Fun warning: watching this video may make you crave a beer and BBQ, so don’t be afraid to give into your temptations!

3. Roger Federer’s Trick Shot

With the US Open in full swing in New York, tennis superstar Roger Federer did a couple trick shots that you won’t see on the court. This video now has over 6 million views in just over two weeks, incredible!

4. The Upside Down Artist

Have you ever been walking down the street, saw some sort of remarkable act happening and just had to stop and watch? More specifically, have you ever seen an artist draw detailed symmetrical pictures upside down? Didn’t think so, watch the video below to bring out your creativity.

5. Slinky Cat

Cats can be so silly sometimes, and viewers really love seeing funny cat videos, so we had to share one here today. This video only has about 31,000 views to date so it’s not a true viral hit just yet, but like Double Rainbow’s slow start, this one could pick up steam eventually.

Be sure to subscribe to our blog for September’s top viral videos, interesting video production posts along the way, and stay on top of new developments within Spidvid’s community as well. Get the Spidvid blog delivered to your inbox, or via RSS.