Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

There's only one word that describes where the online video landscape is going, and that's "professional."

What's the reason? That's easy - money. Advertisers will pay more for professional video than they will for amateur.

The context of online video I'm talking about is entertainment in this post; there are other types of online video like learning and training, but that's a different market.

Web video sites are starting to move toward professional video, as more media companies embrace and pursue web strategies for their content.

Not only is it a matter of making more money per video, a large number of advertisers aren't even willing to take the risk of their brand appearing alongside content that could harm them.

Blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake says the difference between what advertisers pay for professional versus amateur video is huge. For professional content, they can get $60 and over per 1,000 views. For the user-generated fare, they are only able to command about $7 for the same number of views. That's over 8 times more that professional video receives than amateur video.

There's no doubt that over the next couple years online video will be dominated by professional. That's a given.

Does this mean smaller companies with less resources are doomed to irrelevancy? Not at all. What it does mean is we'll have to take our games to a higher level. Quality of productions can be increased without huge investments; but it will have to be increased.

The professional video from major media companies is easy enough to understand, but smaller companies can put out what I call semi-professional video, which must be a step up from user-generated. There will definitely have to be a measurable difference if success is to be reached.

Concerning user-generated video, Matt Sanchez, co-founder and chief executive of VideoEgg, says he sees it changing, as "it will be 10% to 15% of consumption, not 60% of consumption," we see today.