The Youtube Phenomena, can it get any greater?

The amount of content that can be found on YouTube is incredible. Users have millions of videos accessible right at their fingertips in a user-led, collaborative environment. Almost anything can be found on YouTube whether it be home-made movies, news stories, political debates, movie clips, viral campaigns and mash-ups, the list can go on forever. The key driving factor in this phenomenon has been the gradual shift from dial-up to broadband, which has given users instant access to fast downloads, rich content and social networking sites.

From its beginnings in early 2005, YouTube has taken the internet by storm. Originally designed to be a personal video sharing site, it has become one of the most visited sites on the internet, with around 100 million clips viewed each day (Gracy, 2007; Naím, 2007). A major factor in YouTube’s success has been its user user-friendly interface allowing users to easily navigate around the site (Gracy, 2007). A locatable search function enables users to easily find videos of interest and network with others with similar interests (Trier, 2007).There is also no need to “log in” to view clips with the video stream starting as soon as a page loads. A list of “related videos” allows users continuously click through clips of similar interests resulting in hyperlinking.

YouTube has aimed to not maintain ownership of content but rather set content free, its formula to success which has allowing users to embed and pass around videos in websites, blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Gracy, 2007; Harven, 2007). Jenkins (2007) suggests that the ability to embed, share and pass-along videos with the “wow” factor, across numerous social networking platforms has been the key to YouTube’s success. The ability to add YouTube clips to such sites has provided users with the tools to enrich and expand their content, as well as to gain status by passing along their favourite clips with users of similar interests.

YouTube revolves around user-led content creations and users communicating in a participatory culture, encouraging each other to create, edit and share content and is a prime example of a Web 2.0 application (Bruns, 2007). YouTube has revolutionised the way users interact and create content. Not only are users viewers of content but they become both the producer and consumer thus a “produser”, engaging in produsage. Bruns (2007) argues that produsage is “the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement”. In this context users become producers by creating and posting videos and further building on others videos by creating responses. They become consumers by watching videos, commenting, tagging and favouriting videos. They are no longer passive consumers but instead active participants producing, editing and creating content. What makes YouTube so lucrative is its ability to allow any average user to convey information and knowledge to an online audience (Dearstyne, 2007). It is software that connects people and encourages users to become proactive “Do It Yourself” enthusiasts by sharing their public content with the world. Jenkins (2007) describes YouTube as “a meeting place for different subcultures, fan communities and other forms of participatory culture”. Users come together to shift and explore various themes and ideas as well as to admire content and give it greater recognition.

The content that exists within YouTube is enormous; almost anything and everything can be discovered. Hilderbrand (2007) states that YouTube content falls into 3 main categories - copied, appropriated and original. Copied content consists of copyrighted content such as television recordings, movie clips, trailers and news stories. These are clips of direct recordings of programs which have no alterations. Hilderbrand (2007) suggests that these clips tend to be the most wanted clips, as they easily allow users to catch up on new content and relive memorable ones. The next category is appropriated content which consists of existing material such as videos and songs, re-edited and remixed into new works. These are basically mashups with users remixing existing footage, creating amateur music videos, parodies, idol tributes and dance and lip-synching contests (Hilderbrand 2007). The third category is original content video which has no copyright content and mostly consists of users own innovative, unique home movies or video diaries. They can range from home videos to vblogs of their daily experiences, to “how to” tutorials. Thus, vast array of content available within YouTube allows users to become creative consumers.

Hilderbrand (2007) presents an interesting connection between mainstream TV and YouTube’s power. He suggests that some political debates have already been watched more times on YouTube than mainstream TV, making YouTube a powerful medium for politics. He also suggests that mainstream networks are starting to air content produced on YouTube, which demonstrates the power of YouTube.

So can YouTube get any greater than it already is with its enormous success? Well, being an active user of YouTube for both academic and leisure purposes, I think that it will continue to grow, participating, creating and collaborating and new content is added. I think that their might be a blur between mainstream media and YouTube meaning more YouTube gatherings and offline events. With companies already using Youtube at a mainstream level, are we looking towards Youtube TV perhaps? So who will decide on the future of Youtube? I assume “You” will.

I’ll conclude this post with a CNN report on Youtube:


References
Bruns, A. 2007. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf) (accessed April 26, 2008).

Bruns, A. 2007. Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation.
http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20(Creativity%20and%20Cognition%202007).pdf (accessed April 26, 2008).

Gracy, K. 2007. Moving Image Preservation and Cultural CapitalMoving Image Preservation and Cultural Capital. Academic Research Library 56 (1): 83.

Hilderbrand, L. 2007. YouTube: Where cultural memory and copyright converge. Film Quarterly 61 (1): 48.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Taking the You Out of YouTube?. http://henryjenkins.org/2006/11/googtube_tv_20_or_bubble_20.html (accessed May 1, 2008).

Naim, M. 2007. The Youtube Effect. Foreign Policy 1 (58) : 104.

Trier, J. 2007. “Cool” engagements with YouTube: Part 1. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 50 ( 5): 408.