YouTube breaks the 100-million barrier (not dollars)

Posted Jul 16th 2006 4:59PM by Tom Taulli

It's official: the ultra popular video site, YouTube, is getting more than 100 million video views per day. In fact, competitors like Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and AOL have only single-digit market share in the video market.

But, this is not to say YouTube is guaranteed to be the winner in the video category. After all, MySpace has almost 20% of the market.

Ok, so what is this market? It's a new one. And it is growing at hyper-speed. Why?

First, much of the content is user-generated; that is, anyone with a video camera and access to the Internet can easily become a film producer. Next, online videos are short-form (roughly two minutes or so). This makes it easy to consume (and, to consume lots of videos).

Something else: Companies like YouTube have used Web 2.0 techniques to drive traffic, such as allowing people to share their videos – and thus spread them virally.

Most importantly, much of the content is free. That's certainly a way to gain traction, huh?

But, of course, companies like YouTube and MySpace – which are commercial organizations – need to make profits.

And this is the huge problem. After all, a good portion of online video content is horrible.

And, if the content is obscene or illegal, how many advertisers would want to be associated with that?

So far, companies like NBC are experimenting with online sites like YouTube. But they have a powerful trump card: valuable content. This is something that is not likely to magically appear from the user-generated-content model.

So, with its content, if YouTube and other online sites can monetize video content, the traditional media companies will win. If not, the traditional media companies still win.

Tags: Google, Microsoft, MySpace, NBC, Online videos, OnlineVideos, User Generated Content, UserGeneratedContent, Yahoo, YouTube