Are Video Hosts Just a Commodity?

Last week I created a post called, "There. Everywhere. But Here." where I looked at what happens when content starts here, but is discussed everywhere but here. At the NY Tech Video 2.0 session last week, MobLogic showed off their daily show and then discussed the way they handle video hosting and sharing. On the site they use Blip.tv but they also use TubeMogul (a upload/analytics tool) to put their videos on a variety of other services. Then last night I read a post by Colin from Viddler where he discusses another video creator and how they post clips all over the place.

So this begs the question, are video hosts (e.g. Viddler, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.) just a commodity that are interchangeable? What we know is that the company in the lead can get by with just mediocre technology. No one is using YouTube because it has the best player, they are using it because that's where the audience is perceived to be.

Colin notes that WineLibraryTV mainly posts their videos on Viddler but also posts them on YouTube. I've noticed the same thing with Justine. Jim Kukral posted a video response to Colin that's worth watching.

In my opinion Viddler has the best player, that's why I use it on CN. Vimeo and Viddler have very strong communities. I don't think that YouTube has a community. Sure they get comments but at the most basic level, it's a video host. Vimeo and Viddler have interactions between which you don't see on YouTube. Yes, YouTube has added video responses but it still lacks the community feeling.

But by most accounts, YouTube has the most traffic and is most likely the only site that can make a video go viral (outside of the Internet geek community).

As online video moves from $10 web cams to professional equipment and as advertising and other forms of monetization increase, I believe we will see more contracts with star-to-video host taking place. Video hosts need something beyond a fancy player to keep people coming back and the star power will be that something.

What are your thoughts? Should video hosts sign video stars to exclusive contracts? Should video stars sign them? Or does it make more sense for video stars to post their videos everywhere and be independent?