Video clips are short clips of video, usually part of a longer piece. Video clips in digital format are often found on the internet where the massive influx of new video clips during 2006 was hailed as a new phenomenon having a profound impact on both the internet and other forms of media.

Sources for video clips include news and sporting events, historical videos, music videos, television programmes, film trailers and vlogs. Webvideo in its current form distinguishes itself from what is mostly known as video on demand mainly in terms of technology, interface and cost for the user. The current hype in online video viewing only arose when sites were introduced that offered free hosting for the high-bandwidth content and the possibility to easily integrate these into personal Blogs or websites.

This enabled online videos to cross over into the mainstream. The arrival of these sites also gave rise to more widespread use of the name webvideo. Video on demand however, is more closely associated with paid content of film studios, online video stores and cable providers. Video on demand also specifically references videos that start at a moment of the user's choice, as opposed to streaming, multicast and webcams in which the data is sent to the user live by a server.