Ever since the online video format was popularized by youtube, google video and Co. for the talented “youngster from nowhere” to get onto the web and grab some much-wanted attention, the webscape has never been the same.

But I think the idea behind it is the novelty of the content and that it may have sprouted up when Lore Sjöberg launched the brunching shuttlecocksin 1997 as a way to create a dedicated online community for youngsters, based on a bulletin board structure. It was not “rich media” savvy and mostly text, but it laid the foundations for the Internet to be accepted as the next generation media for “smart & shareable” entertainment. While people were still figuring ways to create stickiness on the web, the shuttlecocks made it happen with its hip content and wry humor. It certainly was not as sticky as today’s video sharing portals but the idea that “content is king” stuck.

Then came the plethora of online media sharing sites and realplayer which revolutionized the way people could consume video-based entertainment online. However, the hope of the ‘average joe’ to tape, publish & share a video online, almost impromptously if wanted, remained elusive until youtube and Google entered the scene.

But the real credit of enabling these sites goes to ‘macromedia’ (now Adobe) for creating a vector-based flash player that is capable of streaming video from a website while offering some powerful bandwidth savings and protection from piracy.

Most of the first generation online videos were not an overt mockery of existing events using hi-end editing techniques, soap scenes or celebrity mishaps but simple spoofs of old/popular songs with the actors mostly lipsyncing & dancing. There was no pressure to perform or outperform. No ratings or reviews. No video stars and no hall of famers! So much so that Lore Sjöberg even commented on this in an information week article “Video killed the video star” last month. In the article, he complains about how a layman with nothing to offer can get online, publish and share a home-made video. It could be anything from a lecture on freakonomy to an imitation of the “backstreet boys” in a bugsbunny costume.

So, the makers of these videos were supposed to have vanished at the speed at which, they became popular. But then, the unthinkable happened. Those online vid stars stuck ! Why so? Give it up for Gidol, guys ! An idea that, I think, is here to stay !

Most of these video stars may not be seeing the fruits of their efforts right now but this random act may be shaping up a new dimension of ‘entertainment’, one that needs mastery and skill of its own sort and may even be dubbed into an ‘art form’ of its own type.

For instance, Check the website of Lynne & Tessa, two serious online video stars and Gidol contendors who not only keep it fun but also entertaining and worth revisiting for today’s teens.

A simple google search on their name yields 350,000 results as of August 18, 2006 with their “Barbie Doll” video on top of the results pile. Aqua, anyone?

Then there is the perennial flow of oldie goldies from Gidol Hall of famer, Michael Smart.

With all these new stars around and producing at the rate of millions of vids per week, I wonder if the future face of comedy central’s late night show would be some hybrid crossover of studio material and online vids on the same topic.