Some tech geeks might appreciate iSendOut’s newest effort - the video business card, which allows consumers to create video business cards to send out over the internet for no charge. With just a webcam, camcorder, or uploaded video, you can create your own video business card.

iSendOut touts that:

“The list of uses for the Video Business Card are quite limitless,” said Paul Vizard, president of iSendOut.com. “Use this system for valentines, birthdays, job applications, sales videos auditions, or company announcements. Those who make use of this technology set themselves apart from the regular message crowd.”

Okay, so this doesn’t look like it would be a practical replacement for real business cards, or business card holders & cases, but it could potentially be a nice enhancement for those who take extra care to make a nice video business card.

Personally, I am going to stick with real business cards. I haven’t really gotten into the video blog craze, and I don’t see myself getting into video business cards. I don’t see the practicality of it either. What do you guys think about this?

What does Peter, a 79 year old World War II radar technician and Noah, the man who took a picture of himself every day for 6 years have in common? They were both common people who shared their life experiences on YouTube and became internationally famous.

Time Magazine recently named YouTube “Best Invention of 2006″. Totally manipulating the word “Invention” as video sharing has been around since early 2001. YouTube should have won something more like “most successful website in 2006″. Being less then 1 year old and selling to Google for $1.65 billion, is defiantly one of the best developments on Web 2.0

Since Google’s taken over the site, YouTube has made partnerships with Sony BMG, NBC, CBS, Sony BMG Universal Music, and Warner Music. Not to mention increasing in pagerank.

Expect to see more and exciting things with YouTube in the near future.

The increasing availability and wide-spread use of high speed internet has helped catapult online videos into the forefront of our digital society.  From the two and a half minute video clips of YouTube to the video blogging of everyone from your little sister to Google engineer Matt Cutts, video is pervading our online lives. Even Google AdWords now allows advertisers to submit video ads for publication on others’ sites.

In the not so distant past, online videos were limited to pirated movies and music videos shared through peer-to-peer file sharing systems like Napster and Kazaa.  You could watch a limited number of music videos on Yahoo Music, as well as view movie trailers on Yahoo Movies.  Webcams have been around for awhile, but the abillity to effectively share these videos with mass audiences has been somewhat limited. 

But now, all that has changed. With dial-up internet access falling out of favor to high speed broadband internet, the technology now exists to enable websites to serve up videos at satisfactory speeds.  Websites such as YouTube and Google Video allow users to upload their own videos and embed a video player in their site, which has eliminated the need for many website owners to purchase expensive, bandwith-eating streaming video hosting.  The big websites bear the burden of hosting videos, making it possible for “little guys” without big budgets to get their videos online and in front of large audiences.

Online videos are hot, with friends and co-workers constantly e-mailing eachother the latest viral YouTube video. While it may seem like online video has already exploded, its growth is expected to expand, doubling by the year 2010.  In a little more than three years, analysts expect the global market for online videos to double, reaching 130 million households. 

This latest information comes from a recently published report by In-Stat entitled “Online Content Aggregators - AOL, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Apple - Slowly Defining the Future of Television.”  According to In-Stat, already 12.8% of households with broadband view content via an online aggregator. As access to broadband grows, it is expected that the numbers of those accessing content via an online aggregator will also grow.  In-Stat estimated that about 194 million households had broadband internet last year, and predicts that by the year 2010, 413 million households will have broadband internet.

In-Stat predicts that major TV broadcasters will form a “natural alliance” with online aggregators, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. to provide popular content via their websites.  This is already beginning to happen, as evidenced by popular television shows finding themselves available for download on Apple’s iTunes website.  I can only expect that trend to continue.

And while the old media TV broadcasters try to creep their way into the web, the potential for independent video bloggers, filmmakers, and so on will also continue to increase.  Friends will continue to make silly videos and pass them along to their friends, and video bloggers might suddenly find themselves in front of a huge, loyal online audience.  Rocketboom was only the beginning that phenomenon.

Recognizing the demand for video content, I myself have begun incorporating videos into my personal websites.  So far they’ve been well-received, often increasing traffic to the site immediately.  As a web user myself, I also find video to be refreshing new addition to the web.  I mean, when I first got internet access years ago, I was excited and surfed as much as I could.  But then, after awhile, it seemed like I hit a dead end.  What else new and exciting was out there?  It’s finally arrived, and I’ll tell you what it is- its video.  It’s adding a great new dimension to the web.