In six years, YouTube has become the hub of video content on the web, evolving from cat videos to live streaming news and now YouTube Movies. But from all indications, and the words of new CEO Salar Kamangar, this is only the beginning.
"Today, we’re going to start adding around 3,000 new movie titles for rent available to users in the U.S. that will be accompanied by reviews and behind-the-scenes movie extras," CEO Salar Kamangar posted on the company's blog on May 9, 2011.
YouTube Movies
YouTube Movies is today's Pay-Per-View Channel. Its interface is much more google-esque than YouTube's homepage and navigation is simple and intuitive.
Users can browse Featured titles at the top, browse by Category, or by Collection. Categories displays movies in a given genre: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Crime Drama, Family, etc.
YouTube has also created what it calls Collections. It's essentially a Staff Picks selection like, say, "Vincent's Picks" in a brick-and-mortar rental store.
YouTube displays the Top Movie Rentals in a vertical list to the right with the title's current rank and whether it's moving up or down the charts.
Pricing starts at $2.99 per title, others $3.99 and even some free titles. "Free" is also a browse-by-category selection.
From what I've seen, the selection compares more to Amazon Instant Video than anything else. By the numbers, Amazon Instant Video claims to have 5,000 titles including movies and TV shows. As I wrote in my post on Amazon in April, I've only been able to see about 3,000 (Maybe the others are lost in the Amazon Cloud?) YouTube announced it has "around 3,000 new movie titles."
Note: in addition to Amazon's pay-per-title, Amazon Instant Video offers unlimited streaming (as well as free two-day shipping) of the same titles for $79 per year, billed annually. For more on Amazon's offerings, click here.
If YouTube intends to compete with Netflix, it will have to do more than pay-per-view. That'll take more titles, TV Shows and an Unlimited Streaming plan.
If you can't grow 'em, buy 'em
One step in competing with Netflix, it appears, is bringing Netflix talent to YouTube.
YouTube has been making some moves, recently hiring execs from Netflix and P&G.
Last year, Google grabbed Netflix vet Robert Kyncl to serve as VP of Content Partnerships. In April, Google's YouTube picked up another Netflixer in Christian Kaiser, who served as Netflix engineering VP. According to Peter Kafka of All Things Digital, YouTube also brought in product director Thomas Purnell-Fisher, who will, per Kafka, work on "YouTube TV." YouTube TV is available on Google TV and on any web browser.
Last week, YouTube nabbed Proctor & Gamble digital marketing director Lucas Watson to run sales for the site. According to Advertising Age, Watson was a key component to Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign.
"With Mr. Watson, the company gets an executive who has spearheaded a big increase in digital spending at the biggest ad spender in the U.S. and globally over the past three years..." wrote Advertising Age's Jack Neff.
Newsflash: YouTube has the news
YouTube's Town Hall Channel displays debate topics like Education, Budget, Energy, Economy, Health Care and more. With videos from both sides. After watching each debate topic, users can choose to support one side or the other.
Also available is the Leaderboard, which appears to be popular videos and topics. Users can also submit a question. Every month members of Congress will answer a selection of top-voted questions, according to the channel.
In July of 2007, YouTube and CNN hosted their first presidential debate featuring questions submitted by YouTube users. As noted by Fast Company, in the 2008 election cycle, 7 of the 16 presidential candidates used YouTube to announce their campaigns.
YouTube's Town Hall Channel moves in on pay TV's territory. But this is on the viewer's schedule.
On May 15, CBS announced a new show, but not the pay-TV variety. "What's Trending" would be CBS's foray into web TV, with the show streaming live Tuesdays at 1pm. ET on UStream, LiveStream and YouTube.
The show covers current events and pop culture, through the eyes of the Internet. It broadcasts live every Tuesday. The current week's live show is available for replay one day after the episode airs.
"What's Trending is a new kind of news show connecting you to the top stories and people heating up the conversation online around the world. Get connected and join the conversation around trending topics from global revolutions to entertainment and viral memes. It's what you need to know to be in the now." - CBS Channel on YouTube, What's Trending
And from PayPal a YouTube was born
YouTube was launched in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.
In the year that followed, YouTube skyrocketed from a startup flickr-like service for videos to a video powerhouse that would be acquired by one of the biggest players in the digital world.
Two days after YouTube's launch, Saturday Night Live aired music spoof video "Lazy Sunday." The video made its way to YouTube, and in one week attracted nearly 2 million views. NBC later asked YouTube to remove the video.
Its first viral video hit came in April of 2006 with Judson Laipply's "The Evolution of Dance."
In October of 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion in an all-stock transactioin and now acts as a subsidiary of the big G.
Steve Chen and Chad Hurley discussed the acquisition in October of 2006 in a YouTube video.
Chad Hurley stepped down as YouTube's CEO in November of 2010 and was replaced by Salar Kamangar. Kamangar previously served as vice president of Google's web applications as well as VP of product management for Google's advertisement and monetization process.
Today, more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute, according to the company's blog. YouTube generates 3 billion views per day. That's a lot of eyeballs.
In March, YouTube announced it was acquiring Next New Networks, a web-video production company, in an effort to produce original, and higher quality, content.
A statement from Next New Networks CEO and Co-founder Fred Seibert: "Our company will become a core component of YouTube Next, a new team that will focus on super harging content creator development on YouTube, driving deeper expertise in partner audience development, and incubating new ideas that can be shared with the broader community." -from nextnewnetworks.com.
You say VEVO, Google says money
If you've ever searched for a music video on YouTube, you'll see Vevo is often the first search result. The Vevo Channel on YouTube is near the top for any music-related search. From John Mellencamp to Nicki Minaj. Vevo has its own standalone site on Vevo.com as well as a YouTube Channel.
According to TechCrunch, Vevo is the third-largest source for video on the web after only two years running -- and it's enjoying tens of millions in advertising revenue. Vevo's advertising rate is comparable to broadcast TV with a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) north of $20 per Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch,
VEVO is a joint venture among Sony, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media. Google and Vevo share all advertising and sponsorship revenue. Though Google has no ownership stake in Vevo.
Vevo's traffic grew 62% in its first year, from 2009 to 2010, in large part to its partnership with YouTube and its ability to get the Vevo videos to the viewers. In May, YouTube also unveiled the YouTube 100, a measurement of "song traffic across official music videos, user-uploaded videos and viral debuts, and uses this data to provide a holistic view of song popularity" according to the company blog.
Are you connected?
"You’re finding more and more of the content you love on YouTube, which is now available on 350 million devices," said CEO Salar Kamangar, speaking to YouTube users in the company blog.
I'm not sure where Kamangar came up with 350 million (maybe he made it up) but the adoption curve becomes a lot more manageable if whatever you're pitching is available everywhere. Two companies that have taken advantage of connectivity in the last five years are music service Pandora and streaming-video juggernaut Netflix.
According to a published report from Advertising Age, more than 50 percent of Pandora listening is accomplished on devices other than the PC. Pandora is connected to seemingly everything, from smartphones, tablets and TVs to automobiles and...refrigerators? Yep, the fridge. The high-tech fridge connects to an array of web apps, including Google calendars.
Netflix has also enjoyed subscriber growth due in large part to how easy it is to get Netflix to a TV. Netflix is available on more than 200 devices including PCs, Macs, Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players, Internet-video players, Apple TV and Google TV, Apple's iPad and iPod touch as well as all three current videogame consoles (Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation 3) and more. It's recently begun rolling out a fully functioning Netflix app for smartphones including iPhone and Android.
What's next for YouTube
YouTube is positioning itself to become a full-fledged TV Channel under recently crowned CEO Salar Kamangar. It's set to challenge not only pay-TV cable and news networks but also live streaming services and other video-on-demand companies like Vudu and Blockbuster.
If it can successfully incorporate a premium unlimited streaming model -- pitting itself against Netflix and Hulu Plus -- YouTube could become the center of video activity across the board: on the Internet, on mobile devices and in our living rooms.
"By expanding our content partnerships worldwide and stimulating the success of budding filmmakers, artists and entrepreneurs, we’ll ensure that YouTube remains the best place for the world to see and discover rich talent. So stay tuned—there’s much more to come." -CEO Salar Kamangar, YouTube blog
