Where Are The Future Jobs in Video?

A curious juxtaposition of two news stories today:

NPR Reports that even though the stock market is up 50% unemployment is also 10.2% USA Today reports that small businesses will have to use video in the future

OK, what do these two stories have to do with one another?

First, the NPR Report.

The economy indeed has recovered. It has recovered, that is, if you work for Goldman Sachs or Citibank.  There, bonuses are up a breathtaking 30% over last year.  Indeed, it seems that part of the economy has bounded back with a vengeance. How do we reconcile this with 10.2% unemployment and 17% underemployment.

In the journalism business, at least, the jobs are not coming back.

They are not coming back because they were not lost due to a dip in the business cycle. They were lost because the new technologies of small HD digital camera, cheap laptop editing software and a web that handles video has simply obviated a lot of jobs that no longer need to exist.

Hard to swallow, but true.

Craigslist, which has a net worth of $5 billion and pretty much obliterated the whole field of classified ads in newspapers (along with all the folks who used to sell them and place them - not to mention to the revenue to the papers), employs (Craigslist that is), 22 people.

That’s it. 22 people. And it seems to work quite fine.

Our own small digital hyperlocal TV news operations (3 functioning so far) employ only 6 people per node. They pretty much replace (to some extent) a local TV news operation that might have employed far more.  

The digital online world creates enormous efficiencies and employs far fewer people.  

It’s sobering but it’s true.

Where are the thousands who used to work in the world of journalism going to find employment in this new online digital future?

Fortunately, USA Today provided a glimpse into the future.

“Whether you’re a hot-dog vendor in Boston or design firm in Santa Fe, you will be producing video for the Web,” says Forrester Researchanalyst James McQuivey. “Video is how your customers will find you.”

We are going to see an explosive growth in the demand for online video, produced cheaply and quickly and on a regular basis.

There is a part of the small business community that will want to learn how to do this on their own - which we have pretty well covered.  

But there will be another part of that community - and I would guess a larger percentage - who will want to farm out that video work.

We aren’t talking about producing TV shows for broadcast, so the numbers are far smaller, but there are far more local businesses in need of video than there are cable channels in need of TV shows. And that’s a future for those who know how to make the product.