Ever since Google bought YouTube in 2006, the company has tried to improve upon the streaming video site’s winning formula. And so far, Google’s handling of YouTube has been successful, increasing the number of viewers using this site every day, and turning YouTube into a global cultural phenomenon.
Now Google is taking things a step further by providing a new analytics tool for video posters, which will allow them to find out a great deal about who their viewers are, and where they come from. While some privacy advocates are sure to be outraged, overall the new YouTube analytics tool provides only broad demographic information, and not specific information about any particular user. For example, the analytics tool provides no means to access a viewer’s IP address — only their general location in the world.
By using the new analytics tool, video uploaders will now be able to see how often their videos are being watched, and in which geographic regions they are most popular. Other information will be available as well, including the relative popularity of a video in comparison to others in the same genre.
The analytics tool will certainly be welcome my more serious YouTubers, and companies that use the video site to enhance their marketing efforts. They will be able to find extensive demographic information about their videos, who is watching, and where they’re located. This can help professional filmmakers, for example, to customize their videos, to appeal to a specific region or target demographic.
Of course these kind of strategies and tactics had been used in the advertising industry for a long time. But using analytics tools in order to customize your video message is a new phenomenon online. YouTube is even suggesting specific uses for the new analytics tool. As an example, they recommend that video makers who use the tool and discover they have a large viewership in Spain, should consider posting a Spanish-language version of their videos.
The analytics data being provided by YouTube is not nearly as extensive as Google Analytics, which is a specific service Google provides to webmasters, but it does provide video makers with the opportunity to learn more about their viewers, and take advantage of this information in future video uploads.
Some critics charge that the average YouTube uploader is a high school-aged boy or girl, just looking for a fun way to express themselves, and would therefore have no use for advertising-like demographics information. But the truth is, everyone is using YouTube these days, and even many companies take advantage of the popularity of YouTube to promote their products and services with online videos. For these users, the new viewer analytics tool could prove invaluable.
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Last Wednesday saw the official launch of Hulu.com, a brand new video web site created by an odd partnership of NBC and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Hulu has been available in only a few markets for testing purposes since last October, but the new heavyweight streaming video site has already garnered 5 million members.
Of course, that’s far from the YouTube’s 80 million worldwide users, but many pundits are predicting that Hulu will quickly close the gap to become a major player in the online streaming video market. ABC news.com is reporting that Hulu is focusing more on professional video productions, and leaving YouTube to dominate the amateur and homemade video niche.
To put it in baseball terms, Hulu is attempting to be the big leagues, leaving YouTube to the vet out talent in the minors. Hulu is definitely filling a gap in the marketplace by providing professional quality films, shorts, documentaries and sitcoms, as well as made for Web productions of a very high standard. Ideally, both Hulu and YouTube will find a place in the market, and the two will have a type of symbiotic relationship.
Although both sites feature streaming video, Hulu has a completely different business model than YouTube. To begin with, Hulu is not a free site like YouTube. The site is monetized in the time honored tradition of broadcast television, by airing commercial advertisements between breaks in shows.
While this may sound like a continuation of the over-advertised nature of broadcast television, and something that is sure to put off Web surfers, in reality Hulu uses shorter commercial breaks and high quality ads that are often quite entertaining in their own right.
Hulu is attempting to find an appropriate balance between monetizing the site with commercial advertisements, and keeping the “free-for-all” noncommercial vibe of sites like YouTube.
It is interesting to note that two of the biggest “old media” players are backing Hulu: NBC and News Corp. By and large, traditional media outlets have been slow to adapt to the realities of the new online world, and even slower to integrate their traditional programming online. NBC and News Corp. are taking a big chance here, but it was a chance that had to be taken by “old media” sooner or later.
With more and more young people turning away from television in favor of online gaming, streaming video and social networking sites like YouTube or MySpace, network television (and even cable) find themselves looking at an increasingly aging and sedentary demographic — not exactly an advertiser’s dream.
On the other hand, the coveted 18 to 39 demographic is spending more and more time online, providing advertisers with a young and trendy audience to market to — in other words, exactly the kind of consumers advertisers want.
Will Hulu wind up being the YouTube killer? For now, that looks doubtful, but they will most certainly find their place in the market; and assuming they can get the balance right between free Web content and tasteful advertisements, Hulu looks destined to be a big success.
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There’s just no denying that YouTube has been a phenomenal success online. Although many members of the YouTube community feared that being bought out by Google back in 2006 would “ruin the YouTube experience,” by and large, Google has been good for YouTube, and the online video site has continued to flourish.
The fears that Google would “over commercialize” YouTube have been largely unfounded. It is true that YouTube now features more online advertising than before, but mostly those ads are unobtrusive, and do little to diminish the experience of watching videos on the site.
But the question for many dedicated Web watchers is now, “where does YouTube go from here.” In the online world — just as in the off-line world — you’re either growing or dying, so it is critical for even phenomenal success stories like YouTube to expand into new markets, and adopt new technologies to constantly improve the end-users experience on the site.
With that in mind, there had been rumors for some time that Google has been experimenting with adding a type of live streaming video to YouTube. The site’s cofounder Steve Chen indicated an interest in adding live video as far back as 2005, though he admitted at that time the company simply lacked the resources (read: money) to make it happen.
But Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006 gave the site a firm foundation and nearly unlimited resources to experiment with new technologies. In a recent interview, Chen was quoted as saying, “… we’ve never had the resources to do it [live video] correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually launch something this year.”
So it appears that the many rumors circulating about YouTube 2.0 featuring live streaming video were correct after all. But how will this change or (hopefully) improve YouTube? Actually, it could have a greater impact on the future of Internet entertainment than any of us realize at the moment.
Live video has traditionally been the domain of broadcast television networks. If Google can create a viable system to broadcast live video via YouTube, it will effectively create a massive online broadcast network like nothing the Web has seen before, and it will undoubtedly blur the already murky line between Internet and television entertainment.
Of course, live streaming video online is not a new idea — Yahoo, Ustream and Justin.tv have all experimented with live video, for example. But none of those sites have been particularly successful in applying the technology. Overall, they lacked the resources, infrastructure and money to develop user-friendly live video on a large-scale.
Google, on the other hand, has no shortage of resources, infrastructure and financial wherewithal. If anyone has the capability of perfecting live online broadcasting, it is surely Google. Look for YouTube to begin featuring a beta live video section later this year.
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People will upload anything to YouTube. From the most mundane (read: boring) daily activities, to artistic and sublime studies of the human condition. But among all the high school students on YouTube posting videos about how much they love American Idol (or whatever), you will also find hardened criminals taunting victims and police.
But more and more, police have been using YouTube as an online tool to round up suspected criminals. Consider the recent case of the two Miami gang members who uploaded a video holding assault rifles and threatening the police.
Florida’s First Coast News is reporting that the malicious video (which has now removed from YouTube) led to the two amateur video makers being arrested by the Metro-Dade gang unit, charged with making threats against police officers and weapons violations.
This is just another example of YouTube and other user-contributed websites being used by law enforcement to apprehend criminals, a trend that is expected to grow as more and more web surfers upload the (sometimes illegal) details of their day-to-day life.
Police have also used YouTube to identify drug dealers and other criminals, based on the content of their uploaded videos, and sometimes they reveal more sinister intentions, such as random acts of public violence.
For example, Norwegian police recently closed a public school and arrested a student who uploaded a video threatening to kill several fellow students and teachers. In this case, the police took the threat very seriously and apprehended the boy within 24 hours of the video being reported.
All of this raises the question of what kind of privacy (if any) the average person can expect when participating in social networking and user-content websites. It appears that these days, anyone who is involved at all online, becomes a public figure, and effectively forfeits their right to privacy.
Of course, no one is forcing individuals to be a part of these online communities, but increasingly, those who do not take part feel “left out,” as the popularity of these sites continues to grow. This can be particularly troublesome to younger users and students during those awkward teenage years when popularity seems the most important thing in the world.
Overall, it’s probably a good thing that police and other officials are taking advantage of YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook and other sites to apprehend criminals. But the lesson of these new sites is clear: don’t upload anything online you would not want everyone (including the police) to see.
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There are practically thousands of video sharing websites to choose from. Each of them has their own good and bad, but all of them have something different to offer. There may be sites that practically copy the domain name of popular video sites but they offer different types of videos. If you’re on the lookout for another video sharing site for whatever reason, here are some sites that you can check out. You might see the next big internet star in some of these sites.
Blinkx.tv– If you love sharing videos, blinkx.com is your site. With this free account, you’ll be able to watch and share videos all you want. The home page looks like a search engine for videos and there are clips that will link you to other sites. You can search for a term or an item. Then links from television networks or a video sharing site will show up. Aside from the links, a mini-clip of the actual video is shown so you know what you’ll be seeing in advance. You can even drag and drop the preview to their video player to watch the mini clip. The best part is, you can even earn just by sharing videos. All you need to do is embed a video. Blinkx will attach some ad in the video. When the customers click on the ad, you share the earnings with the website 50/50. Once you reach $20.00 in earnings you’ll have the option of cashing it in via PayPal.
BlabberMash.com – If you’ve got a problem, why not ask for advice online? Instead of writing it, why not post a video about it? BlabberMash.com hosts videos of individuals who have problems in love, life, family or anything related to that topic. If you’re not comfortable with posting videos, you can use fix8 to cover your face so that an avatar will show up instead of your face. Once your videos are posted, people could rate the problem by “trash” or “mash.” You can also share you videos in your own website or blog. The downside about the site is in the responses. Instead of another video for response, a simple text answer is listed below the video.
Blinkbox.com – First of all, this site is not the same with Blinkx.tv. Blinkbox.com is an innovative website that lets you create your own videos online. But instead of uploading videos online, select from hundreds of movie clips and edit them online. Most of the clips are two minutes long but the longest you can do is one minute long. There’s not much you can do to the videos except to add some captions. Once done, you can download the video or share it with other people. The only downside is you need to sign up to even watch the videos. The homepage will just ask you either to register or to log in…nothing else. But signing-up is a breeze so you can go ahead and try the site. If you want to poke a little bit of fun to Bruce Lee or Mad Max, this site is perfect for you.
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If you’ve ever used the Internet before, the chances are you have been to YouTube.com or received one of their many videos in your e-mail inbox. YouTube is one of the greatest success stories of Internet entrepreneurship. It was founded in February of 2005, received funding from Sequoia Capital later that year and launched by the end of the year. Within a year after its launch, YouTube was basically a household name. In November of 2006, less than a year after its launch, YouTube was purchased in one of the most talked about acquisitions ever for a whopping $1.65 billion. YouTube CEO Chad Hurley said, “By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners. I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.”
One of the great features and issues with YouTube that has made it so popular and frequently visited is the ability of any user to upload the videos they want. While this seems like a great idea to most people, some users abuse this ability by uploading copyrighted materials. YouTube does display a Terms of Use screen that lists different rules such as: In connection with User Submissions, you further agree that you will not: (i) submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein.
Within a week of Google’s acquisition of YouTube, the lawsuits over copyright infringement had already begun just as many had speculated. Time Warner was the first to file a complaint against YouTube. YouTube’s acquisition by the corporate giant, Google, made it a prime target for copyright lawsuits. YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley states that they are looking to make this site profitable for all who are involved: “We’re committed to developing tools to identify the content and monetize it so content owners can have a new outlet for their content.”
Many business and Internet analysts are predicting YouTube is doomed and will not make it very far due to copyright infringement lawsuits. One possibility is that YouTube will be forced to remove all the copyrighted material which is one of the main draws of their web site. If this was to happen, it would leave very little interesting content, and the amount of users would sharply decline. Many comparisons are being made about YouTube to Napster, the file sharing giant that was eventually shut down due to copyright infringement lawsuits.
Just like Napster, YouTube is fighting their copyright cases with similar arguments. Some of the material posted to their web site is homemade but a large majority of it violates copyright law by sharing video of copyrighted materials like movies, music and TV shows. YouTube is quick to remove any videos that violate copyright laws or their own Terms of Service once they are made aware of it.
One advantage that YouTube has going for them already is the great business and technology minds at Google. YouTube has made partnership deals with large content providers such as CBS, BBC, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, the NBA, The Sundance Channel and many more. Although these agreements are great for business and may prolong the life of YouTube, it may only take company to stop this progress. Greg Sandoval states: “It only takes one unhappy media company – Disney, Sony, CBS or News Corp for example – to force the company’s hand. And the cases on this point, from Napster to Grokster at the Supreme Court, are clear.”
YouTube is undoubtedly one of the most visited and most entertaining web site available today. There will definitely be some lawsuits over content in the future that may risk the existence of this site. The acquisition of YouTube may be one of the greatest business deals to ever survive or fail; only time will tell.
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