aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, March 31, 2006

Flocking to You Tube

CNet says You Tube is the talk of Tinseltown:

Executives from heavyweights such as Yahoo, America Online and Turner Broadcasting were buzzing about YouTube’s sudden success at the Digital Hollywood conference here this week. Even though it’s not clear exactly how YouTube will make money, no company generated as much excitement at the gathering of Hollywood studios, electronics manufacturers and Internet media companies. [...]

YouTube has sped past a host of competitors by tapping the public’s thirst for reality programming. By mixing some professionally made clips, including music videos and movie trailers, with homemade content, YouTube has seen the number of viewings on the site shoot up from 3 million a day to 30 million since the Web site’s December launch, according to YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan.

Not everyone at the conference was impressed, however. Plenty of executives wondered how the San Mateo, Calif., company plans to fend off the likes of Google, iFilms and Atom Entertainment, all of which possess far more resources. And nobody knows how YouTube, which has 20 employees, plans to make money.

There is still no advertising on YouTube; it doesn’t charge to view or upload videos; and its executives so far have been mum on their business plan.

RELATED: A VC sezs, “You [can] put the video on your own page… That is key, and I mean key.  People want to turn their MySpace pages, their blogs, and whatever else into their own TV station.  And that’s critical to viral distribution.”