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Creators and consumers are hungry for shorter videos, greater privacy and lucrative opportunities for monetization. This leads to the growing popularity of new apps that offer users more digestible and less time consuming content powered by innovative technologies such as Watch-to-Earn and NFTs. How will this impact social media giants such as Instagram and TikTok?
Shorter videos are growing in popularity
Shorter video styles have noticeably picked up in popularity. With platforms such as Coub.com pioneering the style over a decade ago, Vine, Musical-y and now TikTok have all seen their fair share of cult-like youth interest. Most recently, social media giants such as Facebook (META), Instagram (META) and YouTube (GOOG) have joined the party with ‘Reels,’ ‘Stories’ and ‘Shorts’ becoming household terminology. Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times, a simple trend that will fade out, or perhaps it’s something deeper.
New research reveals that our attention span has significantly decreased over the years. In 2000, it was 12 seconds. Now, we’re looking at an average of 8.25 seconds. Perhaps the fact that the availability of content is at a record high, being pushed further by streaming services such as Netflix (NFLX), Spotify (SPOT) and YouTube, we’re diving into everything, and our minds are adjusting to cope with the large variety of options. In any case, due to our decreasing attention-spans, shorter videos are becoming more digestible and appealing. A key takeaway from Vidyard’s 2022 ‘Video in Business’ report was that for videos under 60 seconds in length, 62% of viewers tended to watch through until the end, whereas, only 26% finished videos that are over 20 minutes in length.
Shorter videos are flooding the market, and there’s infinite variety as a result. This is because, nowadays, plenty of mobile apps offer easy-to-use toolkits for short video creation. This contrasts with the world of content creation a decade ago, where at least a quality camera, editing software and a great deal of time was required. A recent report published by Statista pointed out that the number of smartphone users in the MEA region almost doubled from 86 million in 2014 to around 174 million in 2019. That’s double the amount of potential content creators.
With the aforementioned in mind, the Redseer Short Form Videos report made some interesting predictions with regards to monetization opportunities. Indeed, over the next eight years, the monetization opportunities in the short-video space are expected to grow by 127x as a result of their popularity. This figure is certainly enough to topple the profits of large social media giants, so it’s important to understand whether they are beginning to feel the pressure.
Out with the old, in with the new
As the ‘short video’ style is becoming the preferred kind of content for consumers and creators, what’s happening to static picture-based platforms such as Instagram and long-style video publishing services such as YouTube?
Although Instagram announced their 1 billion daily active users back in June of 2018, they haven’t issued an update since. Indeed, it’s year on-year growth dropped into the single digits in 2019 and eMarketer predicts that there’s no end in sight. Even streaming services such as Netflix are reporting losses, and the consumer preference for shorter forms of entertainment is certainly an influential factor here. We can’t ignore the fact that advertising rates on YouTube have dropped to almost 50% of their previous highs, simply because there’s a lack of demand for advertising on the platform. But what’s really causing this mass exodus from the content creation giants of the 2010’s?
Importantly, the creators and consumers of generation Z simply aren’t interested in these mediums of content transfer. Due to the structure of Instagram’s platform, TIME Magazine referred to Instagram as the ‘worst social media for mental health’ and Gen Z are aware of this. Moreover, there are minimal options for monetization and growth for creators when compared to platforms such as TikTok, where fame is a reachable goal for everyone.
Users of social media are getting sick of the double, unskippable ads and the invasive, almost creepy targeted advertising. They are seeking privacy, first and foremost, and secondly, they’re no longer content with being treated as a commodity.
So there’s a need for a privacy-focused, short video solutions that reward both consumers and creators for their time, not only with exposure, but with cash.
Watch-to-Earn: a knight in shining armor?
Watch-to-Earn is a term that’s relatively new, and has been brought to life by the Coub.com short-video platform with their foray into blockchain, but the concept has been around for quite some time. As the name suggests, it allows consumers to earn money by watching videos. Previously, here have been several attempts to bring a Watch-to-Earn model to users, but none of them succeeded.
Coub’s short-video style gave way to vastly successful platforms such as TikTok, but its recent movements are paving the way for something quite spectacular. Not only is it offering a Watch-to-Earn model in which users will be paid to watch the platform’s short videos, but creators are paid proportionally depending on how popular their coubs are.
What’s game-changing however is that this is all on the blockchain, as each Coub is an NFT that can be traded, royalty-inclusive. This means that coubs can be bought and sold as investments, where they bring the owner royalties dependent on the popularity of the video.
Given that the platform already sees millions of users creating new videos everyday, the transition to the Watch-to-Earn may be a prominent development on the Web3 market.
The popularity of short videos is skyrocketing, there’s a mass exodus from traditional media, and there’s a gap in the market for a platform that combines the decentralized nature of Web 3.0, the blockchain, the addictiveness of the short video trend, and lucrative, Watch-to-Earn opportunities for the community. We shouldn’t ignore that for businesses, short videos can be incredibly effective means of reaching their target audience; they don’t require large budgets and have unprecedented potential to go viral. As a result, short video platforms may see monetization reach $100 billion. Analysts predict that in India alone this number may pass $9 billion by 2030.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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