Online video is set to grow and grow, according to a report by ABI Research.

It predicts that the number of people watching video content over the Internet will triple to nearly 1 billion by 2012. ABI Research says “this growth will create a demand for new and evolved monetization models that will help create a multi-billion dollar industry in coming years”.

This will hearten news organisations such as The Guardian newspaper investing in setting up video operations.

The success of YouTube and similar services is seen as evidence that people like watching videos online.

But the challenge for news organisations is working out what to offer as moving images, as opposed to in text or other formats. And as the experience of the BBC shows, video over the Internet is not the same as video produced for TV.