• BusinessWeek, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 1 PM

When it comes to television, content may be king, but on the Web, community reigns supreme--at least that's what BusinessWeek says.

It used to be that if you wanted to lure the most viewers to your TV channel, all you had to do was produce the best shows. It doesn't necessarily work that way on the Web, however, as the same show can be viewed on multiple sites. As Arash Amel, senior analyst with London-based media researcher Screen Digest, points out: "Every major studio right now is following a nonexclusive strategy" on the Web. Because of this, "the question for these sites is beginning to be, 'how do you differentiate yourself beyond the content you have?'"

The answer, the report claims, is for professional content sites to form a community. As such, the likes of TV.com, Joost, Sling.com, Veoh, Fancast, and Hulu are letting users build profile pages, form fan groups, post reviews, vote in polls and share news feeds with their friends. According to BusinessWeek, professional content plus social features equals great advertising value. Social features tend to make users more loyal, in addition to keeping them on the site for longer. By fostering a loyal user base, online video sites hope to entice more content producers to put programming on their sites, boosting the value for advertisers in turn.

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