(30 September 2006 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: User-Generated Content (UGC), such as that found on YouTube and MySpace, will continue to grow significantly in popularity and generate increasing revenue over the next several years, reports In-Stat.

By 2010, the volume of downloads/views on these sites will surpass 65 billion, and revenues tied to UGC video are expected to exceed $850 million by 2010, the high-tech market research firm says.

Revenues are those directly linked to videos in the form of banner/skyscrapers, embedded video, Google Adsense, and/or branded pages/channels.

In-Stat analyst Michael Inouye says, "Democratisation of media affords users the opportunity to express their opinions, rate content, and vote for their favorite videos."

"In addition, what may currently seem like ‘the Wild West’ is actually an industry that has started to see idiosyncratic ‘judiciary bodies’ and ‘rules of law’ imposed by each player within this market."

Research by In-Stat found the following:

* The size of downloads/views are estimated to eclipse 1.1 exabytes of data by 2010, with uploads growing to more than 9.1 petabytes.

* 23 per cent of the dozens of UCG sites studied currently support mobile access, with others making announcements for this support in the near future.

* YouTube holds the highest market share for video, but MySpace has the most visitors.

This research is part of In-Stat’s Consumer Media and Content Service, which focuses first on the changing digital content models, and then how this will influence the evolution of equipment, standards, technologies, services and consumer usage models. The service addresses the acquisition, distribution, and use of digital content (audio, imaging, video, and voice) and how it fits into the consumer’s digital entertainment lifestyle. The service explains the opportunities for equipment makers and service providers within the emerging digital home.

In-Stat found that although Online Content Aggregators are in the early experimentation stages of rolling out video services, they will have some dramatic revenue-generating opportunities in the next five years. The worldwide market for online content services is expected to expand by a factor of 10, growing from about 13 million households during 2005 to more than 131 million households by 2010.