The rise in Internet usage world and the increasing expansion of bandwidth size and speed have facilitated the evolution of the Internet from a predominantly text-based medium to one that is being more and more dominated by video.
This explosion of video content, however, has presented its own challenges with a plethora of content of varying quality and type thrown together on multi-audience websites with no format for efficiently bringing consumer and producer together in the virtual market.
This paper examines the phenomenon of the increasing use of video on the Internet and attempts to develop a system for the more efficient delivery of video content to Internet users through the application of recommendation systems. The economic object is to reduce search costs and reduce the deadweight loss arising from the failure to match consumers of video content with those producers of online video whose content may constitute a long tail that is rarely viewed.
After outlining the advantages of recommendation systems to video content delivery, we examine the business case for online video content by analysing the trends in online advertising and make projections on the feasibility of the recommendation system model for delivering online video content.
We conclude with a bibliography of the most recent scholarship and reporting on what is still a nascent trend.