Peeler, Otalvaro and DePew are just three examples from a growing army of video producers who should not really be lumped in with the consumer content generators who've stolen so many headlines this year. Sure, like your average YouTuber, they're benefiting from new technologies and the long-tail economy and are bringing a consumer sensibility to their work. But they're also making use of professional experience and are building businesses, not just entertaining their friends. What's more, through their experience and ability in targeting interest groups, as well as new technology and service providers such as Brightcove or Roo, they can find meaningful audiences across a range of sites -- audiences that can be measured and, most importantly, can be re-aggregated into the kinds of numbers that actually mean something to advertisers.

"Start-Ups Such as Brightcove Challenge Google, Yahoo; A Problem for Old Media...Brightcove's technology makes it easy for any producer -- from home-movie buffs to television networks -- to distribute their videos to multitudes of Web sites. All three parties -- the video's maker, the site that shows it and Brightcove -- often will share revenue from the resulting advertisements or sales...'In the past, content owners had to rely on gatekeepers like cable companies to get to consumers,' says Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's founder...Now they don't have to do that.'"

"'In the past people only had the chance to license their content to networks, says Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Brightcove. 'Now that's not the case'...Brightcove last year began rolling out a publishing and distribution platform that big and small producers can use to create their own online channels. For instance, this January, Barrio 305, an online music production company in Miami that creates hip-hop and Hispanic R&B videos, used Brightcove to create its own channels that it syndicates to other online sites."