YouTube Growing ... Like Cancer?

PreacherTom writes "The success of YouTube has been staggering: they currently field 100 million videos per day and have attracted the attention of influential people like Bill Gates, who may be planning his own video hosting service. However, growth does not always equal profitability. Incorporation of ads risks their very base. If that were not enough, like Kazaa, they struggle with the Damocles' Sword of Litigation hanging over their head each day while bandwidth and server costs continue to rise. Is this phenomenal growth only rapidly killing our favorite video warehouse?" From the BusinessWeek article: "YouTube could easily alienate its users by overwhelming them with ads. And the startup has to figure out how to attract a broader group of marketers by filtering more for copyrighted or offensive videos and by creating more channels of similar content. Aware of the risks, YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are moving slowly to ramp up advertising. They have been wary of asking viewers to sit through a 30-second ad before a two- to three-minute clip. Instead, YouTube is developing new formats, like ones rolled out in August that let marketers build their own video channels or pay to place a video on YouTube's popular front page."

Comments

This article makes an interesting point...

[russ1337]

each day while bandwidth and server costs continue to rise

The article correctly recognizes that Youtube are forking out money "hand-over-fist" to maintain their service. Should they be charged more money for 'hogging bandwidth' that the anti-neutral lobbyists would have you believe they are, any additional cost will likely be the straw that breaks the camels back.

All the more reason to keep the net neutral. - services like this will not be able to operate under a non-neutral Internet.

Re:Internet Bust, Episode 2

[protohiro1]

This is way OT, but is it just me or are Troll mods getting more common and more arbitrary? This was clearly not a troll! Just because something is controversial it isn't trolling.

Re:Content, ads, legal, pay to play

[rawdot]

pay to place a video on YouTube's popular front page."

Oh the vanity! People really do that??? If I want you to see my video I'll put it on my own site and mention it somewhere, maybe even slashdot and it it's interesting word will get around, if it's not, my ego won't be crushed. I will be pissed if those weasels at thinkgeek steal it for another merchandising product.

Well, someone was willing to pay ABC/Disney $40M to run the pseudo-history of 9/11 this weekend... (Without running ads, even.) Or maybe they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. No wait, that's not right... Or maybe it is Right?

Cheers,
Richard

A few days ago...

[GWBasic]

Please excuse the juvenile toilet humor...

A few days ago, after posting my first YouTube videos, I searched for "zit" and then "fart light". I'm sure a company that sells acne medication and anti-fart pills would love to put a banner on the results page. They could also put a small banner on the bottom of each video.