Flavors of grassroots video

What kinds of videos are people watching online? It’s sure not Lost or Desperate Housewives, even if downloads of traditional TV shows command most of the media’s attention, thanks to Apple’s bottom line.

At Supernova on Friday, Mary Hodder, CEO of Dabble, said she’d list the different varieties or genres of grassroots video her company is seeing on the Web, and here it is:

1.  Mini tv show-style  — It’s Jerry Time or Ask a Ninja
2.  Videobloggers:  telling their own life stories like Ryanne Hodson
3.  Genre guys:  snowboarding or car videos
4.  Commentary: Rocketboom or the Bush Blair video.
5.  Indie film shorts like Four Eyed Monsters
6.  Random.. silly.. funny.. ridiculous… ephemeral Tag: momwalksin  tag: lipsync
7.  How-to’s that actually show you how to do something in detail or teach:  French Pod Class
8.  Remixs and mashups:  The Presidency Then and Now or Matrix Reloaded or Brokeback to the Future.
9.  Interviews like those at GETV.
10.  Parodies like the 8up commercial.
11.  AMV or anime music videos:  Loveless
12. music videos – lipsync sitting at the computer, dancing around with
music playing, that in effect, remakes the artists own music video into
ones the users like, that stars themselves. Here is Hips Don’t Lie.

Mary forgot a couple:

13. Citizen journalism, like you see at Real People Network or Minnesota Stories.

14. Digital stories.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.