YouTube Casts Shadow Over Once-Hot eBaum's
THE ONLINE VIDEO BOOM THAT has made a household word of YouTube and launched scores of similar sites hasn't been a boon to every video-sharing hub. Over the last year, eBaum's World--which helped to pioneer stupid videos online--has seen its U.S. traffic fall by nearly a quarter, from 5.5 million monthly visitors to 4.2 million, according to comScore Media Metrix. Its page views have dropped by 25% over the same year-long period ending December 2006.
The chief culprit appears to be YouTube, whose traffic exploded from 1.5 million to 29 million monthly visitors last year, according to comScore. YouTube's growth, of course, has far surpassed that of all other video sites including those of Yahoo, AOL and Google. But eBaum'sWorld is the only viral video site with a sizeable audience that has experienced a measurable decline in ratings over the last year.
"Two years ago they were the only ones that had that kind of video and there really wasn't that much competition," said Jason Glickman, CEO of video ad network Tremor Media. [eBaum's World] is one of the few that would've gone down because they were one of the first with that kind of stuff." In that view, eBaum's World is looking more like the Friendster to YouTube's MySpace these days.
The site became popular for posting videos celebrating the outrageous, ridiculous and racy from skateboarding dogs to Britney Spears passing out. Its origins go back to 1998 when founder Eric Bauman started a bulletin board service collecting jokes as a high school student. Over time, the eBaum's site expanded, adding audio pranks and funny photos before hitting on dumb videos as the path to online success. And despite its reliance on questionable content, eBaum's has managed to attract a bevy of advertisers eager to reach the prized 18- to-34-year-old male demographic that makes up the site's core audience. Its media kit online lists marketers including TBS, Snickers, MTV and Sony Pictures.
Last year, USA Network and Fox Television Studios even announced plans to create a show based on eBaum's content. Fox produced the pilot and delivered it to USA, where it remains under consideration as a series, according to a Fox representative.
Online Video Takes Off
The explosion of YouTube on the scene last year, however, highlights how quickly things can change in the nascent Web video world. The relentless rise of YouTube's popularity has coincided with a gradual decline in eBaum's traffic, especially since the spring when the site's U.S. audience dropped to about 4 million and has stayed there as of the end of December. Last February, less than one-half of 1% of eBaum's visitors went to YouTube after leaving the site. As of December, 3.5% were heading to YouTube after leaving eBaum's--an eightfold increase, according to Hitwise.
Besides YouTube, competing video-heavy humor sites also enjoyed healthy growth last year. Heavy Networks' traffic increased by 15% to 6.4 million, while the audience for upstart Break.com nearly doubled to 3.5 million from 1.8 million, according to comScore. AOL Video, which caters to a wider audience, also almost doubled to 18 million visitors in 2006.
"Clearly, the space has gotten a lot more crowded in the last year," said Joe Laszlo, a research director at JupiterResearch, of the Web viral video market. "As long as video is easy to pass along, that plays against these sites because consumers can just as easily find viral video posted on YouTube or Break.com as eBaum's World."
Indeed, while eBaum's may have taken the hardest hit from YouTube's rise, other video sites are showing signs of succumbing to its dominance. Video startups Guba and Revver both saw top management exit in December following Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube. This week, Metacafe replaced its co-founder and CEO Arik Czerniak with former Electronic Arts executive Erick Hachenburg. TechCrunch reported in December that concerns over the site's falling traffic may have scuttled a deal for it to be acquired for $200 million. From September to December 2006, Metacafe's U.S. traffic has dropped 30% to about 3 million visitors, according to comScore. (Its worldwide audience, however, has grown rapidly this year to 17 million.)
With YouTube established as the 800-pound gorilla of online video, the best strategy for competitors now is to differentiate themselves by focusing on niche audiences, said Laszlo. To the extent that it targets a particular audience, eBaum's World has an advantage in that regard. But the young male demographic is one that is being chased by a horde of video and social sites. Only this week, the IAC/InterActive Corp. revealed plans to expand original video programming on CollegeHumor.com, which it acquired last year.
eBaum's World did not respond to inquiries for this article. But the company has recently taken steps to add more community features and upgrade its video-uploading system. In December, the site unveiled the beta version of its new upload service--allowing users to edit video titles, and create avatars and thumbnail images along with standard social networking features such as user profiles and buddy lists.
Last month, eBaum's also added the ability for users to upload various file types including flash, and to block mature video content after logging into the site. A story on eBaum's World in the October issue of Wired also reported that the company has begun paying for content after running into copyright disputes with video contributors. Payments are usually less than $250, but the site has offered as much as $1,500, according to Wired. Paying for exclusive video--at least for a limited period--is another strategy that video sites are increasingly adopting to separate themselves from the pack. Whether these moves will help eBaum's to keep its audience from slipping further remains to be seen.
