What Will Happen to YouTube in 2007?
As I did yesterday with Digg I would like to explore the future for YouTube in 2007. Unlike Digg I don’t see a ceiling for YouTube because I really do believe it could become the future of television. This doesn’t mean it will become the center of the television universe, but it can provide the model that allows networks to feel confident in moving ahead on the online front.
Take a look at YouTube today. Google has removed a majority of the garbage looking ads on the site and replaced them with either deeper links into YouTube or cleaner ads to other sites. Is this a sign that Google is going to be placing ads within the videos themselves? If so, the logical place would be at the end of the videos since this doesn’t interrupt the flow for the user and its hard to see it causing that much of an uproar.
CBS has already partnered with YouTube and seems to be doing pretty well putting up clips of their shows to a thriving community and how could you ignore the impact that YouTube has had on SNL? I’m sure many networks are more inclined to post videos on their own websites, but it makes more sense to post them on YouTube where there is already an existing community and people are going to visit YouTube anyways. There is no guarantee that millions will go to CBS.com just to see clips of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
The next stop is getting YouTube on your television, but there are a number of problems with this. The main problem that I am not seeing anyone else talk about is how will grainy, low-res videos look on a 30″ TV? Probably not that good and therefore who would really want to view it? Second how do you even get the video to the television by a means that a majority of the public can manage? Apple could partner with Google with their upcoming iTV product, but beyond that what else can be done?
One thing that will have to be corrected and I am sure many of you will argue the same thing applies to Digg, are the comments on videos. It’s nearly impossible to moderate millions of videos, but if you have ever bothered to read any of the “discussions” you will see that they aren’t meant for anyone besides sailors and inmates.
Finally I see more and more people using their YouTube profiles to replace their Myspace/Facebook profiles for connecting with family and friends. So much more can be done with video that can’t be done with pictures and words. All YouTube needs to do is put the tools in place to make it happen.
Related reading:
In terms of the quality of a low-res video on large screen TV’s, I think the way to combat this would be to (by default) build capabilities into the device that would provide a split-screen view. On the left would be a shrunken box that would contain the video and to the right a box containing comments, meta data etc etc. Then, an option could be provided to view the video in full-screen. I think this would work pretty well, and if youtube were to partner with apple and make use of the “iTV” this would definitely be achievable.
By garrett on January 2, 2007 7:50 am
“What Will Happen to YouTube in 2007?” – a big question, but what I want to know is what will happen to Google Video in 2007. I remember thinking at the time of first acquisition rumours – “isn’t this a gross admission of the failure of their own video service?”.
How do they quietly kill off Google Video without people saying “you won the video game because you had the most money, not because you could compete.”
re youtube, I think it’s an uncontrollable freeland. They encourage you to upload your own content, and even if it’s only up for half a day, you can distribute copyrighted stuff using someone else’s bandwidth. Nice option.
By ggwfung on January 2, 2007 8:59 am
I’d be curious to know how many of the folks out there, who are waiting for the day of YouTube tv, watch and/or participate in current.tv — which has been on the air for quite a while now?
By Mark on January 2, 2007 9:27 am
Oops — got a little “w” happy with that link.
By Mark on January 2, 2007 9:28 am
My brother watches YouTube content on his tv via opera on his Nintendo wii (zoomed to about 2/3 screen-size) and it looks decent, but it’s far from hi-def.
By Scott N. on January 2, 2007 11:25 am
I couldn’t agree more that their unmoderated “discussions” are a serious PR problem for YouTube. Unless they can figure out a solution to it, I don’t see them taking over the mainstream from T.V. I think they don’t need to worry as much about moderating the discussions as they do creating accountability for comments made. People don’t make the hateful comments in real life they way they do on YouTube because we’re not anonymous in RL. Perhaps they could create two different types of accounts, anonymous and verified. Anonymous comments could be filtered out by parents or those wanting a more accountable conversation.
By Justin Kistner on January 2, 2007 11:51 am
Garret: Are you taking into account larger size screens? Obviously the images won’t scale as well when we start hitting the 40″-50″ range so again I’m not so sure you want to watch videos on your TV.
Mark: I’m sure not very many. Not enough people are aware of Current.tv and to them YouTube is the future. Not a service that already exists.
Justin: It definitely presents a problem.
By Scrivs on January 2, 2007 1:28 pm
Wasn’t there an effort to get YouTube on cell phones? I don’t see people sitting down on their couches to watch Youtube. There is a social aspect to YouTube and cell phones just might be the key.
By Michael on January 2, 2007 3:31 pm
I believe that is still in the works, but I don’t think putting the videos on cellphones will increase the social aspect of it at all. Just another way for people to kill the time.
By Scrivs on January 2, 2007 3:38 pm
That’s my point. Current.tv is currently the closest thing to YT on traditional tv that we have today, and there’s no buzz, no excitement, no viewership over the potential of the future.
I think all of us have the capability to see something (a movement / fad) in early development and “know” that there’s something there in that idea to latch onto, to build on.
Current.tv — no one’s latching on
Webtv — no one latched on
Local access channels broadcast similar shows (in format) to RocketBoom and ZeFrank all day long, and there’s all kinds of network tv showing the funniest home videos of amateurs all day long.
There’s very few folks latching on to those as well.
Aside from the current level of apparent disinterest, there’s a huge hurdle for YT to overcome when the HDTV broadcast standard rolls around for everyone in 2009(?)
Where I see a real potential is in the functionality of a time-based tag such as Viddler (which 9Ruler, Chris Tingom had a big part of the development of) has to offer.
Now, if I could watch tv and immediately skip to the interesting parts, as determined by my community, with comments based on those tags and not — “great video, thanks for uploading” and “you suck for uploading this”, then we might be getting somewhere.
By Mark on January 2, 2007 9:20 pm
YouTube will need to look at content mirroring for Europe and Asia if they want to be serious about expansion outside the continental US.
Post-Taiwan Earthquake, all i’m seeing from YouTube is a blank black screen here in Singapore. All the dollars poured into marketing videos and sharing of personal videos has come to a screaming halt with the disruption of any of the undersea links.
By andrew wee on January 6, 2007 4:42 pm
I would like to watch youtube
By suleka on November 13, 2007 11:04 am