YouTube could dominate cellphones

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s addition of GrandCentral (an awesome service!) last week kept the batting average of the internet search company at a steady 1.00. Google keeps on making acquisitions that add to its already-impressive arsenal of products and services that, for now, overshadows just about every other internet brand. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) have made some large-scale buys too in recent months (Right Media for Yahoo!, aQuantive for Microsoft), but Google keeps stealing the thunder.

But going back almost a year now, Google's acquisition of online video company YouTube still gets a lot of attention due to the way the website is stealing eyeballs from traditional media like network and cable television (and movies), among other venues. YouTube's video quality and medium (computer monitor viewing) is hugely subpar when compared to a standard home television experience, but that does not seem to matter; instead, it's the content that matters. Viewers may be getting increasingly fed up with the hi-def broadcasts of boring, staid shows and prefer the grainy reality of 'television' made by the public. Why? It's real.

YouTube's greatest potential, though, is not even on the computer screen -- it's on the cellphone screen. Visit mobile.youtube.com on your cellphone's web browser and you can get a taste of what may be coming. Not all YouTube content is available yet, but with these videos being converted on the fly to the format most modern cellphones can play, is YouTube's vast video library about to be opened to over a billion cellphones worldwide? With YouTube being bundled by Apple on the new iPhone and with a partnership with Korean cellphone giant LG on tap, Google's plans for YouTube may expand way beyond the computer screen. There are about four times as many cellphones in use in the world as PCs -- and we can all do the math, right?