Will 5min.com Survive Or Will YouTube Eat Them?

Is it just me or is anyone else confused as to why 5min.com has recently been receiving overly positive coverage in the news. Apparently TVWeek is obsessed with 5min.com as they recently named them as one of 5 online video startups to watch in 2009 and then followed up that announcement with an exclusive interview with Ran Harnevo, CEO and co-founder of 5min.com.

Even though I am sure it is a very exciting honor to receive for their company I am still a bit confused as to what the big deal is with their website and company’s service offering. Yes, I understand that they are a niche online video syndication website that has focus on how-to do this and how-to do that, allowing people to share their knowledge with a requirement to do so in 5 minutes or less. Yes, I get the concept that syndicating such how-to videos out to premium Web publishers is a smart way to place relevant videos in front of a specific targeted audience. However, saying that this is a competitive differentiator or something to get all hot and bothered over is rather far reaching.

On their own website they are quoted as saying their goal is “to create the first communal Life Videopedia“. What? Videopedia? If I was sitting in their meeting when they were giving their elevator pitch and they said the word “Videopedia” I would have laughed out loud and certainly not signed a check for $5 million in funding. That said, 5min.com must have included something impressive in their pitch because the signees of that $5 million check came from a very respectable venture capital firm out of Boston, Spark Capital. This venture capital firm has a laundry list of impressive companies in their investment portfolio including Twitter, Tumblr and Veoh Networks so 5min.com must convinced them with something.

I don’t mean to sound harsh or like another know it all anonymous blogger that sits back and judges others about something I have no personal experience creating. That said, their are many positive attributes to their company, lets explore.  For instance, they have impressively gathered a monthly viewership audience of over 110 million unique users with the mass majority of views being generated by 5min.com’s distribution publisher partners such as Answers.com and Dictionary.com. Also, 5min has launched a syndication network for its videos called VideoSeed, which uses semantic matching to deliver relevant clips to participating sites. The platform matches keywords found on syndication partner pages and pairs them up with videos in the 5min database according to title and tag information (along with relevant ads to go with the video). Offering these types of services and products are all impressive accomplishments, but is it enough for them to successfully survive for the long haul, especially in a tighten Worldwide economy?

I am just concerned that their barrier to entry to help fight off competitors is way too low and their core business is really one missing channel genre away from being crushed by much larger online video websites like YouTube, MySpace or Yahoo! Video. Imagine if YouTube decided to launch a dedicated how-to channel with the same video requirements and revenue sharing distribution partner program as 5min.com maintains. YouTube would be able to build a video how-to catalog larger than 5min.com’s 40,000 plus video database and generate more page views in a matter of months if not weeks. In addition to such all-inclusive video website competitors that could compete with 5min.com there is also a long list of direct how-to video website competitors that could become problematic as such as Wonderhowto.com, Howcast.com and Videojug.com all fighting for a share of the available market. I guess only time will unfold the truth. It will be interesting to watch and see what happens. Good luck 5min.com, all the best.