Converging Media Sharing - Is It Needed?

Social networking has helped increase the amount of media sharing among individuals. Sites such as Flickr, Youtube, Purevolume, and blogger are all massive forms of media sharing. But as you look at the list of sites, media sharing is very segmented. For photos you go to Flickr, for videos you go to Youtube, for music and audio you go to Purevolume, etc. A few startups are trying to bring all of this together into one massive media sharing platform.

I was able to speak with one of the founders at one such startup, Twango. From their site they describe themselves as:

We recognize that people share many different types of media in a wide variety of ways. More than 100 types of files find a home here, including photos, videos, audio, Microsoft Office documents and PDFs. We would never presume to tell you how to share this media. (It’s yours after all.) That’s why we created a very open, flexible service that puts you in control.

Twango was founded in 2004 by a team of ex-Microsoft employees, and launched in April 2006. They claim to have just above 10,000 members, with 50% month over month growth.

Twango has done a great job at building an extensive media sharing platform to not only share within the site via social networking, but outside the site via embedding, emailing, instant messaging, etc. Twango’s goal; a one stop shop for all of your media sharing needs.

After talking to Twango, I had one question. Do people really want or need a one stop shop? Before I answer this question I should say that the only media I share are occasional photos which Facebook serves well for me, so my opinion is probably biased. I think we have a segmented media sharing market, because the users are segmented in their needs. For example, Flickr users predominantly take photos, not video, YouTube users predominantly take video, not photos, etc, etc. So for those types of users, a site like Twango is un-appealing because it offers way too many features that the user doesn’t need.

Even for users who commonly use two formats, video and photos as an example, a large portion of Twango’s site is still useless to them. More importantly, the efficiency trade off between using one site compared to two, doesn’t outweigh the additional benefit you get by using a very focused site. This is exactly why I think Niche Social Networks will do very well.

So what is the market size of users who capture enough media in enough variety of formats on a regular basis to make a site like Twango necessary? Pretty small right now. Is it growing? Absolutely. New devices such as mobile phones that allow you to capture multiple formats of media is helping this crowd grow. But I think that these mobile devices will not only be used for capturing the media, but eventuall all of the sharing as well, cutting the computer out of the equation entirely.

I’d love to hear from others that are more involved in sites such as Flickr, YouTube, etc. in the comments section.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Online community, Media Sharing, Twango, Brian Balfour[/tags]