Yahoo and Google face challenge as social media sites aim to be video gateways
The humble TV is in danger of being overtaken by video, considered by many as the next frontier in business, and Facebook and Snapchat are taking the reins
Facebook and Snapchat have overtaken the homepages of Yahoo and Google as the front doors to the internet for hundreds of millions of people. Now, the two rivals are pursuing a much bigger challenge: surpassing television to become the dominant gateway to video.
Tech firms see video as the next frontier of their business, and app makers and video producers are already making strides in creative and business concepts. Whether they stand a chance is being tested in small studios and corners of offices around the world.
In Venice on a recent Friday afternoon, make-up artist Amber Talarico brushed eyeliner onto Kristin Lai. As two digital cameras and a computer broadcast the scene to thousands of Facebook users, Talarico slowly and without commentary dressed Lai to resemble a creepy doll from a horror movie.
The transformation show Becoming has drawn almost 200,000 viewers an episode (three seconds counts as a view on the social network; TV’s Nielsen ratings require one minute of viewing).
“Significant,” says Jon Handschin, president of online media company Moviepilot. “I don’t think the numbers have to be millions.”
