YouTube

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Wikipedia

History

• 3 Paypal Employees, idea: scratching an itch! 2005, Beta launch
• First video: (Me at the Zoo)
• Early funding
• Google purchase: $1.65 billion, late 2006
• Growth
• Cultural Phenom to a more mature business model
• 2009: lost $500 million
• 2012: $3.6 bn in revenue, split with content partners

Growth

• A lot of junk, but great search
• Viral nature of content (Obama Girl)
• NBC Deal
• Live event streaming
• Channel strategy (ex: Barely Political)
• pre-roll ads; content partners (45% to YouTube, 55% to content parter)
• 800 million unique visitors / month; #3 most visited site
• 30% videos 99% of viewed content
• Influence music charts
• Issues with comments
• importance of other social networks: Facebook, Twitter
• Apps, iPhone, Android
• Competition ? Facebook)
• Number 2 in downstream data, behind Netfix (2013)

Copyright and censorship issues

• Limit length of videos
• Fair use
• User flagging system
• Safe Harbor, DCMA (copyright holder to issue takedown notice)
• Content ID system
• Viacom $1b suit, settled after 7 years
• Other content issues: blocked in China etc. Turkey in 2014 temporarily
• add "promotes terrorism" to content that violates terms of service
• Comments

Comments

• "stupidity of the crowd, versus wisdom of..."
• a second layer of content
• integration with Google+ (requiring a G+ account) 11/13

Net Neutrality issues?

Users

• fun, amateur content, not incentivized to make money
• marketers using YouTube as part of Social Media Strategy, or broader marketing strategy
  • Owned Media: Channels: integrate; brand; engage
    • Old Spice
    • Nike
    • Home Depot
  • Paid media: Advertisements
• Professional and amateur content, ad sharing model, professional content creators.
• Internet celebrities, Psy etc. Gangnam Style generated $800k in ad revenue for Psy, and $8m overall.
• Top 500 partners earned more than $100,000. 1 million members of partners program.
• Media brands, using YouTube as an additional channel for content (subscriptions)

Business Model

• Advertising platform; pre roll (with content partners); display etc.
• Subscriptions (5/13)