The New York Times, sometimes slow to acknowledge new media trends that threaten its core franchise, has an article that is worth looking at this morning (you’ll need to have registered at www.nytimes.com in order to see this) — not because of its content but because now even the Mainstream Media are recognizing web video as a full-fledged phenomenon.  Here are some excerpts from Richard Siklos’ article:

“The world has gone batty over video.  Thirty-second clips, three-minute spoofs, half-hour sitcoms, TV dramas that haven’t been shown in decades, rap videos, Hollywood blockbusters and feeds from TV news outlets big and small are flooding online. The term video itself is already starting to sound old — the equivalent of songs before the advent of MP3’s and downloads.”

“…there’s gold in them there hills. Video delivered over the Internet is clearly shaping up to be an actual business that advertisers are interested in. The broadcasting (netcasting?) of television programs and clips on the Web moves the debate away from Internet-versus-TV because if TV executives put their best material online and get paid for it, the proposition becomes Internet-cum-TV. “

One more sign that, as we’ve acknowledged here before, video content on the web is reaching a critical Tipping Point.  But let’s not view this as merely an opportunity for the big TV networks to muscle their way in.  By its nature, the economics of internet distribution make it possible for every company and organization to start thinking about how to deliver television programs to the special-interest clusters who naturally flock and cluster on the web.  And with the distribution strangleholds thus broken, we’ll never again complain that there’s not enough to watch.