Sites like TV.com, Hulu, and Joost that conformation much of the same content are hoping that social-networking features will put them ahead of the crowd

By Douglas MacMillan

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On TV, content is king. But on the Web, community may reign supreme. Throughout television history, the way to bait most viewers was to air the best shows. It doesn’t necessarily labor that way on the Web, where many shows can seen on multiple sites.

Take the recent announcement by dint of. CBS (CBS) that it would begin display shows like Showtime’s Dexter and Sony Pictures Television’s (SNE) Bewitched on TV.com, CBS’s online site for full-length video. But none of the more than 1,000 new programs are debarring to TV.com. And the episodes of Bewitched, the classic sit-com featuring the nose-wrinkling witch Samantha, are already on rival Hulu, the joint site of NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS). "Every major workshop right now is following a nonexclusive strategy" online, says Arash Amel, senior analyst with London-based media researcher Screen Digest. "The question for these sites is commencement to be, ‘how do you differentiate yourself beyond the contentment you have?’ "

The answer for TV.com and others is to encourage users to form a community. Host sites including TV.com, Joost, Sling.com (SATS), Veoh, Fancast (CMCSA), and Hulu are letting users post reviews, build profile pages, form use a fan upon groups, vote in interactive polls, and contingent activity logs with friends.

Like newspapers and other media outlets hoping social networking elements be pleased foster faithfulness amid users, TV sites want to find ways to keep viewers on the position longer and get them to renovate friends. It’s too early to take effect what impact the new features be disposed have on the bottom line, moreover the reason is to entice more content producers to put programming induce on their sites—and to boost the value to advertisers.

Building online communities for video sites has been tried before. The standard-bearer on this account that online video, Google-owned YouTube (GOOG), came into prominence partly since of its focus on community. Its multitudes of short, often whimsical clips uploaded by users are well suited for commenting, rating, and sharing with friends. But YouTube’s lack of professionally produced content has also deterred advertisers.

With the market for online video advertising firm to grow to $850 a thousand thousand in 2009, from $587 million last year, YouTube is expected to give up some its share of the market to the growing numeral of sites through studio-produced content. "The professional sites are any of the main drivers for that 45% growth this year," says David Hallerman, a older analyst at researcher eMarketer.