down the avenue: YouTube On the Up or Not?

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July 24, 2006

YouTube On the Up or Not?

Is this for real and then I realized, its only going to continue as more and more players enter this space. The New York Post and John Battelle comment on the buzz around YouTube following their involvement at Sun Valley.

Says New York Post, "following the Sun Valley excitement, the buzz is that Hurley and his backers have their sights set on $1 billion for the video-swapping site - which now streams nearly 100 million videos per day. That figure would top the nearly $600 million that both News Corp. - the parent company of The Post - paid for MySpace and NBC paid for iVillage."

Says Battelle, "YouTube was the toast of Herb Allen's Sun Valley conference, and therefore is now worth $1 billion. I don't buy it. I don't think the founders are smoking this shit, I think the media is - at least I hope that's how it is. Why? Simple really. While YouTube is an amazing service, with extraordinary uptake, I've been told (and it seems obvious on first glance) that its core content is mostly copyrighted material. (I make this statement after being told as much by two very senior folks at major media companies who have studied content patterns on YouTube.)"

Without inside sources, I have to say, "$1 billion, 'c'mon." Anyone else out there saying 'c'mon? This isn't 1999 and even if it was, 'c'mon.'

I think John is spot on when he says that "YouTube proves that our culture wants desparately out of the traditional model of force fed television, and wants to move to a model where we participate in it, where we remix and share it."

According to News.com, Boing Boing, and TV Squad… next week, YouTube is switching to the “I’m not dead yet." Based on the media heat (good or bad: you decide), YouTube posts their new Terms & Conditions here.