Video on Every Display Surface?

There isn't much doubt that video is going to drive the next wave of global bandwidth consumption. There are bigger questions about the business models underneath all that video, however.

Forrester Research analyst James L. McQuivey, for example, envisages consumers being confronted with “a dozen video platforms per day,” according to Seeking Alpha. But there's more to it than that.

Forrester thinks video will become so compelling that enterprises will “broadcast” video continuously from inside the enterprise. Companies have to have a strategy for communicating every message--internal or external--using video.

“Once video becomes this easy to produce, deliver, store, and share, every agent in society will not only want to participate but will have to participate in order to have a shot at reaching people with its products and services,” McQuivey contends.

Every video surface will become a marketing platform, he predicts. When nearly every surface in your environment can display video, marketers will pay a pretty penny to show up at the bottom of a food bowl or in a bathroom mirror, where their product marketing message will be far more relevant than it is on a TV today.

“The only broker of this ad space in your home is you: We envision ad networks one day paying you for the right to aggregate your ad experiences,” he argues.

That might be stretching matters a bit. What seems more certain is that global bandwidth now is driven by video.