In the past, if you wanted to tone up and de-stress, it usually involved a commute to the local yoga studio, paying a hefty class fee and then struggling to find space for your mat. No longer. YogaLearningCenter.com decided to harness the power of online video by introducing an online video library of yoga and meditation practices. For $7 a month, subscribers can access videos based on teacher, experience level, and the benefit they want to achieve (weight loss, stress reduction, etc).

For subscribers, it’s an easy, fast way to get results, or peace and quiet. YogaLearningCenter.com has short yoga videos that are designed to do at your desk or quick meditation practices to center you before you ask for your big raise. They also offer an easy way to upload the videos to your iPod so you can take your yoga on the road (although, then you really don’t have an excuse for not exercising).

What makes YogaLearningCenter.com so successful is that they were able to take a niche market and use online video to make it cheaper, easier and more interesting. They saw that people wanted the flexibility of working out in their homes but didn’t want to have to watch the same DVD over and over. Because online video is so much cheaper to produce than DVDs, they were able to meet this need and frequently expand their content and even niches (they are planning on moving into Pilates this next year) while still making money with their online videos.

DanceTutor.com similarly took dance classes and put them in an easy-to-use format online. Knowing that people want to learn at their own pace and might need more time and instruction than a class can provide, they use online videos to break down dance steps into easy-to-learn steps. Again for a flat $7 a month fee, subscribers can learn dances from the Lindy Hop to Salsa to Tango.

The advantage of the online video is that viewers can watch the same dance steps over and over again, until they really get it - something that might be a bit draining for even the most patient teacher. And with supplemental diagrams and written instructions, students truly have all the teaching tools they need at their fingertips. The only excuse wannabe dancers have left is just that – two left feet.

Know of a cool company that is using online video to make their niche market more accessible? Post it in our comments section and we may just feature them in an upcoming post.