Microsoft Offers Real World Advice for Enterprise Video Streaming

Companies both large and small are using online video to communicate with customers and with their own employees.

At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, Michael Kada, who until the week before had been the group manager for social media enterprise at Microsoft, talked about how video use is sweeping through today's companies. The fact that video creation and production is easier than ever has democratized its use.

"The devices to create video are becoming so simple that a lot of users who put them out of reach now can do it by themselves," said Kada. "Before, you needed a professional video expert to create a video, and now it's so easy that many people can do it by themselves. You can actually record it on your phone right now and then upload it to a portal."

Kada also oversaw video production at Microsoft, and got a unique view of how the video revolution was shaping up.

"The other thing which is happening -- and I observed it in real-time -- is the implosion of video production costs. I did an analysis. I call them the do-it-yourselfers. Because when I was at Microsoft I also was responsible for video revenue. Basically I had my own department, I had revenue targets and a number of videos produced per month, per year, and I saw my numbers coming down. I said something is wrong. Is my marketing wrong? Is my sales team not doing a good job? So, I dug deeper into it and what I saw is many people who basically said, 'Hey, I need someone who will record the video for me and produce the video for me'  -- no need anymore: they do it by themselves," noted Kada.

What he found was that the lower end of the video production market had imploded, thanks to people doing the work themselves, but the higher end was untouched. For more professional production, companies still hired experts.

Watch the full video below for more from Kada, as well as presentations from Accenture and Coldwell Banker. Also, download the presentation for Accenture.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net