On January 3, 2007, AOL announced that its video Search Engine, Truveo, now has more than 100 million videos in its index.

Video is not a fad.
This is an amazing figure, but nothing compared to the one billion videos they expect to see online by 2009! Video is not a fad. It’s not going away. The online population is rapidly proving that they prefer watching over reading.

How Can Videos Make Money?
It’s very difficult for many of us to envision how we might be able to monetize online video. But if you wait until you get that figured out, you’ll probably already be far behind your competitors and struggling mightily to catch up.

What Should I Do Now?
Instead, concentrate on developing your knowledge of and expertise in video for the web. How does it work? What formats should you use? What equipment do you need? Where do you put it on your site and other websites? How do you optimize it for the Search Engines? Then, when an opportunity to cash in arises, you’ll be in position to take advantage of it.

For now, use video to create an online presence. Use it for branding. And try figure out ways to use it to attract traffic and links to your site. Doing nothing with video will get you nowhere much faster than you imagine.