I think that with YouTube's recent flurry of content deals with major players (Time Warner, CBS, BMG music, etc.), it's become clear that YouTube was *not* about to meet its death due to crushing bandwidth costs. It's really interesting, actually, because instead of beating 'em, they decided to join 'em. Their biggest problem was copyrighted content, and with these huge partnerships (and I am sure this is just the start), they can now *legally* montetize a great deal more than they could even a few months ago. With over 100 million videos played per DAY (even more pageviews...), even a little monetizing goes a LONG way...
YouTube's journey and success is really one for the history books. From day one it's been an interesting thing to follow. The founders are clearly very intelligent and they quite obviously followed a very stragtegic plan while outsiders went on and on about their impending doom. Their nearly instant rise to success won't soon be repeated, but if you study their case carefully, there are lots of great gems of advice to take away.
Those are my thoughts. 
Laura |
