Video is the latest buzz for Internet marketers. Examine the viral marketing campaign in the blogosphere for Joost.com.

Nearly everyone, including yours truly, is hopping on the video bandwagon.

Yet a new study finds that online video sales, such as Apple’s iTunes downloads, will peak next year and then fall flat.

Why?

The major television networks and movie studios are exploring ways to provide the content for free, i.e. with advertising sponsors like television. In fact, you can watch many popular shows at the networks online websites within hours of their being aired on TV.

This isn’t the “Death of Video” for Internet marketers. Instead, it means that niche content, particularly how-to content, will come to dominate the pay-per-download video market. In fact, I was talking today with a client about how to take his particular niche and adapt it to an online video membership program, i.e. a monthly subscription service where customers in his niche across the globe would willing pay for his teaching them.

Note also the trends in video sales letters. There’s been considerable debate on the copywriting boards as to the effect of video on long copy. The developing consensus is that video will supplement but not replace long copy.

Prospects for your business will be able to select which form of media they prefer when visiting your website in order to learn what you have to offer. Some will choose video, some audio, some text, and the majority of combination of these. Some call it Web 2.0. I call it common sense.

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.