YouTube has been on a veritable tear lately. Traffic has been skyrocketing, and according to Compete YouTube is now the number four website on the internet. But that is only the beginning of the story. Compete, while a useful tool, has never been famed for its accuracy. They have it wrong: YouTube is bigger than you ever dreamed.
YouTube is now serving one billion videos daily. Roughly, given a world population of around 6.8 billion, that works out to just shy of one video per seven living humans, each and every day. If you look at the traffic trends that Alexa, Compete, or Quantcast can give you (look over the last year), you can only reach one conclusion: YouTube is still growing faster, much faster, than the internet as a whole. This growth makes YouTube now, or in the near future the world’s largest single media hub. Not the worlds largest communication medium, radio and television are still larger in aggregate than YouTube. But, YouTube is now most likely the largest single deliverer of content in the world.
This comes at little surprise, YouTube was rumored to be serving 1.2 billion videos daily in June. But, to have a clear number from Google that they are willing to share must indeed be worrying to the rest of the world’s media delivery platforms. YouTube has gone from being an internet phenomenon to being the single largest powerhouse in existence. What do you bet that we see an increasing number of lawsuits against the site in coming months?
Of course, YouTube is still rumored to lose money by the bucketful. We can only hope that with Google’s new monetization schemes of selling music and ringtones over videos that have musical content must be making some positive impact on the website’s earnings. If Google can get the website to cash flow neutrality, it will cement a long term Google hegemony in online video, akin to their current dominance of search.
One billion views per day, is three daily for every US citizen, or two for every EU citizen. But even with its immense size, recall the traffic graphs: YouTube is only going to get bigger. How long until it reaches two billion daily views?
Great more power to them.
But let me ask you this.
If YouTube would be gone tomorrow, would you really give a shit?
If my cable company would stop beaming Comedy Central, I would go on a rampage. What content has YouTube really got going for it?
I am asking this, because Eric Smith has publicly said that he wants Google to become a media company or media power house. Right now they are simply a distribution company with YouTube. They have nothing to offer in the form of original content.
Will the big television studio’s go with Google? The big studio’s have invested in Hulu and see that as their way forward. In other words they think they can do their own distribution on the web. Hulu has plans for wider distribution, e.g. EU.
There’s no single thing that makes we want to keep on coming back to YouTube. I use YouTube because other sites use them as a free distributor. Why pay for bandwidth when Google happily wants to pay the bill, right?
Most people I know that use YouTube, actually use it as an alternative to MTV. Create your own video music playlist. Yeah!
Actually MTV is dead, they air more reality TV show crap instead of music. So I do think that YouTube can make some money with music suggestions and cross selling of e.g. concert tickets.
But the question in my head is still, would I really care if YouTube would be gone tomorrow? As a consumer HELL NO.
Consumers would be more pissed off if Hulu would be gone tomorrow. Hulu is a big threat to YouTube because it provides the content that people actually want. Hulu will outshine YouTube.
The consolidation of the web and YouTube’s place in the Top 10 is fairly well assured for the medium term. It can only improve from now on and has the technical and financial muscle to stay in the Top 10.
I think that you have it wrong, if YouTube was gone tomorrow, it would be an absolute disaster. The YouTube community is massive, and many podcasters, producers, film groups, etc, use it to distribute their content. They are tightly integrated into the internet community. Removing them would pull a serious linchpin from the underpinnings of how we interact/work.
Alex, yes YouTube is a great distributor of content. Who doesn’t want a free distributor?
But if there was no YouTube, then content publishers would simply have to self-host their content.
The content itself would not disappear!!!
It would simply be on their own servers.
The content that would disappear would be the stupid home video crap that is filling up their channels. That’s a good thing right?
Google has ambitions for YouTube.
Ambitions that go further than simply being a distributor. Eric Smith wants Google to be more of a Media Company.
That will simply not work when you don’t have the content that people actually want!
Hulu has the content I want!
And the big studio’s ShowTime, HBO, Comedy Central etc. don’t want their content on YouTube. They are betting on their own pony: Hulu.
Disney was once a content provider. But Disney today is also a distributor. They decided to distribute other movies / merchandise next to their own stuff. A great decision!
Hulu at some point will also decide to become a (generic) distributor! They will have the content and brand recognition. This will make them more interesting as a distributor.
When I think of the YouTube brand, I think of silly cat video’s. When I think of Hulu, I think of great TV shows.
Which brand do YOU want to be associated with more? Which brand would make more sense to marketing people?
Let’s make it more interesting: For which site would you pay a monthly subscription?
I would happily cancel my cable subscriptions and pay that money to Hulu. Screw all those video podcasts I watch, just give me an episode of Dexter!
Let me end with an upside: Eric Smith said that he paid a BILLION dollar to much for YouTube! Yikes!
It’s great to see that they’re finally converting some of their billion eyeballs into banner impressions. So Google is making their money back, one set of eyeballs at a time. A good thing!