Consumers are ready to take their consumption of video to a whole new level, and companies looking to profit from this explosion need to act now, according to a new report issued by Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst James McQuivey.

In How Video Will Take Over the World, McQuivey lays out a vision for a world in which individuals will be able to watch video nearly everywhere on a variety of different devices, in which anyone will be able to produce video, in which remixes and mash-ups will be prevalent, and in which the video industry will become much larger and more influential than ever before. McQuivey calls this vision OmniVideo (OV).

“Every time we kept trying to say video instead of television, it just wasn’t enough,” he said. “Some people were thinking back to video tape. Other people were thinking of a single video itself, and we just realized that the word video isn’t big enough to encompass everything that we need to do.”

Prepping the OV

According to the report, the technology needed to bring about the rise of OV—IP video delivery, mega storage, and cheap display screens—is already in existence, and core human needs will drive its implementation.

“I think a profound driver of everything we’re seeing is that video satisfies the brain in a way that other media just cannot,” McQuivey said. “And so, when you give people compelling video experiences and a relatively easy way to manage and control it, which the internet is, we see a huge response.”

McQuivey writes that OV will drive up the average total viewing time from four to five hours per day by the year 2013, representing a potential $37.5 billion growth opportunity for companies in the industry looking to sell content or advertising. For that reason, he said, these companies should jump on the boat now and establish themselves as leaders in OV before one company establishes itself as the market leader.

“It’s a little bit like the music industry missing the boat with online music,” McQuivey said. “They kept saying, ‘No, no, no. We don’t want to be involved with that,’ and then suddenly, by the time they get in, it’s too late. Apple controls it.

“If you’re selling televisions, if you’re selling media services, if you’re creating content, you’re trying to create video content experiences. You need to be working on these experiences now rather than waiting until some smart company sets down all the rules and you can’t change them.”

A Video World

According to the report, OV will have a drastic impact on its viewers as well as the world. Public screens that will allow users to upload and watch videos from their portable devices will be installed in locations such as bars and cafes, directors will allow viewers to alter their videos in new and creative ways, video screens offering traditional content as well as personalized traffic and weather loops will take up entire walls in users’ homes, and the average individual could find themselves coming in contact with about 12 different video platforms each day.

While some of these scenarios may bear striking resemblances to scenes in books such as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, McQuivey said he doesn’t believe that OV will bring the dystopian futures predicted by these works into reality.

“We do have video cameras in our homes, but we bought them. Big Brother didn’t put them there,” he said. “We do have 50-inch screens on our walls, and we do feel really close to the people that we watch on those screens, but we actually use those people to connect to our friends because we want to talk about what we saw on TV last night. So, it’s not as impersonal as Ray Bradbury imagined it in Fahrenheit 451.”

One Step at a Time

McQuivey said he hopes the report will cause companies and individuals to rally around the symbol of OV and begin creating these experiences, though he is too practical to believe that will happen immediately.

“What I wish would happen instead is that anybody out there who still believes that their job is to inhibit consumers and restrict consumers’ use of video would just make a small pivot and start thinking, ‘Oh, my job is to enable and allow.’ … If everyone can make that slight attitudinal change, I think all the behavioral things that I’ve predicted will occur naturally.”