If you’re interested in the present and future state of the online video industry (which, given your presence on this blog, I would hope you are), you could do a lot worse than spending a half hour of your time hearing what Mark Suster has to say. The Upfront Ventures partner and regular online media investor delivered a keynote at Social Media Week Los Angeles where he provided some insight on current trends in the web video space.
In his talk, Suster–whose investments include top multi-channel network Maker Studios–answers four separate questions: Why are YouTube “haters” wrong? Why is online video going to rule the future? What role should MCNs play? And, to Suster, what is the specific future of online video? Suster’s positive view of the YouTube ecosystem is a sharp contract to the more critical viewpoint championed by Jason Calacanis during his talks over the past few months. Before you decry YouTube for its greedy online video monopoly, it’s worth hearing what Suster has to say.
The keynote address is embedded below. Skip to the 31:00 mark for the start of the talk.
