YouTube

History

• Idea: scratching an itch! (Me at the Zoo)
• Early funding
• Google purchase: $1.65 billion
• Growth
• Cultural Phenom to a more mature business model
• 2009: lost $500 million
• 2012: $3.6 bn in revenue, split with partners

Growth

• A lot of junk, but great search
• Viral nature of content (Obama Girl)
• NBC Deal
• Live event streaming
• Channel strategy
• pre-roll ads; content partners
• billion unique visitors / month; #3 most visited site
• 30% videos 99% of viewed content
• Influence music charts
• importance of other social networks: Facebook, Twitter
• Apps, iPhone, Android
• Competition ?

Copyright and other content issues

• Limit length of videos
• Content ID system
• User flagging system
• Safe Harbor, DCMA
• Viacom $1b suit
• Other content issues: blocked in China etc.
• add "promotes terrorism" to content that violates terms of service
• Comments

Users

• fun, amateur content, not incentivized to make money
• marketers using YouTube as part of Social Media Strategy, or broader marketing strategy
  • Owned Media: Channels: integrate; brand; engage
    • Old Spice
    • Nike
    • Home Depot
  • Paid media: Advertisements
• Professional and amateur content, ad sharing model, professional content creators.
• Internet celebrities, Psy etc. Gangnam Style generated $800k in ad revenue for Psy, and $8m overall

Business Model

• Advertising platform; pre roll (with content partners); display etc.
• Subscriptions ?

MySpace

• Friendster accounts
• Founded 2003
• Was the major social media platform, circa 2006-2008
• Most visited web-site, 7/06
• Approx 100 million users at its peak
• Enabled launch of other success projects, like YouTube
• Social media, not yet mature when MySpace dominated (100m accounts, 2006)
• Controlled app development internally, rather than app ecosystem. API published in 2008
• Google advertising deal
• Issues with sensitive content
• Site redesign issues, overall design usability, not clean
• Fleeing users, tipping point
• Now a complementary social media network (niche), not a Facebook rival
• new Myspace, 1/13, open beta. Rebranding site: Creative community