In our third annual OVP Predictions piece we look back on the online video space from a general practitioner’s view (mine) and ahead from a leader’s view (the OVP founders, CEOs, VPs, etc.). It’s been another amazing year filled with record breaking events, ups and downs, foundings and shutterings (neither of which are words) and the addition of 10+ new OVPs. It’s a crowded space indeed, a theme you will see often in the words below. Over the years at VidCompare we’ve watched over 100 platforms ebb and flow with the threat of commoditization while roughly 15 OVPs were acquired or rolled-up into other OVPs, and 13 shut their doors. All this while video viewership continued at a breakneck pace. In September 2011 comscore reported that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in 39.8 billion video views (Wow).

We’ve seen several OVPs begin to specialize in an attempt to pull away from the pack with one OVP in particular making a unique move into the world of cloud-based application management (Brightcove), while Ooyala honed in on analytics and monetization, RealGravity into the world of advertising and syndication, Unicorn Media and Twistage sharpening their workflow management skills, and Magnify.net dominating the world of curated content.

Enough of the obvious, let’s move onto the interesting stuff. This year we’ve culled together an impressive list of predictions from 10 OVPs, and 2 OVP gurus. Continue on to get the inside scoop from those whom have been in the trenches since the early days and don’t forget to leave your comments.

» Read more: 2012 Online Video Predictions – OVPs