Over the span of my college career, the world has seen the rise of YouTube.com, a site where users can upload video content. While the site was initially created for people to upload their own videos, it has evolved far past that. As of March, 2008 the site contained over 77 million videos, many of those being music videos or commercials, which were professionally produced.
Because the site offers so many videos, it is not surprising that it costs approximately $1 million per day to run YouTube. This brings us to the problem of profit for the company. Back in late 2006 YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (Interestingly, YouTube had only been online for a year and a half when it was purchased). Obviously, Google saw this as an investment, as YouTube was actually losing money at the time. The move also solidified Google’s share of the internet video market. Currently, YouTube uses Google ad words and overlay advertisements to generate advertising revenue. This has been a particularly tricky topic, as people are accustomed to watching videos on the site without commercial interruption. However, YouTube’s strategy is to use overlays, similar to those on television which pop up in the corner of a program, to generate advertising revenue.
There are a number of reasons that YouTube has become so popular. Personally, I think the first and foremost reason is the fact that registered users can upload an unlimited amount of videos. Instead of other sites which limit the amount of content a person can upload, YouTube encourages anything and everything to be put on their site. Secondly, I would credit their popularity to their stance against censorship. While they do not allow nudity, nearly everything else is fair game. Finally, YouTube has become a common, and well recognized word. People now associate all video content online with YouTube, and for the most part it’s true. If you can’t find something on YouTube, chances are you won’t find it at all.
Because of its popularity, YouTube has been in the center of a fair amount of controversy. For example, thousands of copyrighted videos have been uploaded to the site. Copyright holders are constantly threatening lawsuits against the site. Some people have gone as far as uploading movies, in 10 minute blocks, to the site. However, this has proven largely ineffective, as YouTube is quick to remove infringing content. On the other hand, however, some companies don’t mind their work being posted on YouTube as it will spread to a larger audience through the site.
Finally, certain countries have banned YouTube entirely. The most notable being Thailand, Pakistan, and Iran (Thailand has subsequently lifted its ban). For Pakistan and Iran, it is not entirely surprising. Because YouTube’s content is not checked before it is uploaded, it is possible to put nearly anything on the site, at least for a short time. Iran’s problems with the site are based in certain videos depictions of Muhammad.
Ultimately, YouTube is the largest online video site in the world. While it has an impressive amount of content, you never know when the “new YouTube” will pop-up. There are always people setting out to create new and improved versions of websites. And while most of them do not catch on like the original site, every so often we see a “change of regime.”
