Most small businesses try the free route first, says McQuivey. But they often become stymied when their videos are lumped in with funny cats, lip-syncing teens and parody videos, and don't like it when YouTube, for instance, deems to place ads at the beginning of the videos. They can also become frustrated with the lack of customer service.

"About 2% of small businesses have begun to adopt video," says Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne. "They don't understand yet how it will drive their business. That will change in the next two years."

Small businesses using video now include real estate agents, health and exercise vendors and dog walkers. Some dentists, doctors and lawyers use it now, but most don't, and local retailers are absent.

"That's because they don't know how to get the video produced," Wayne says. "That's the hard part."

A new generation of college kids the YouTube generation will be graduating with savvy video-production skills, says McQuivey. "Finding people to produce your video will be much easier," he says.

Jose Velasco, a vice president at Miami-based Interactive Travel Solutions, churns out travel videos for tour operators, which get shown on many sites, including American Airlines' aa.com.

His company couldn't use YouTube to showcase its videos, "because it just wouldn't look professional," he says.

But can Sorenson, Fliqz and the rest persuade enough small businesses to spend $1,200 or more a year on posting videos?

"My gut says there aren't enough small-business owners out there right now who are willing to pay for online video,"' says McQuivey. "But that will change over the next few years."

McQuivey says consumers more and more will be looking to the iPhone, Android and other mobile platforms to make decisions about where to go and that the videos on small-business sites will make the difference.