Youtube has changed the internet.

Users will document their lives, hobbies, experiences and lively hoods.

Youtube has changed the internet. Really it is just utilizing the internet the way it is supposed to be, but Youtube has changed marketing and advertising and the culture of watching pictures. Before, with a simple cable service you picked a package of like 50 channels and you could watch whatever you wanted and commercials would play in between shows and there were way to many and it got really annoying so you flip between a few channels to avoid the ads. And most of the channels you will never watch, they are just there to get in the way. Your experience is diminished because you can’t focus on the show or movie or whatever. Then the internet came and now you can watch all sorts of shows with varying amounts of time allotted to advertising and more freedom to control your viewing experience.

Youtube is a website that keeps track of and posts “views” of each video. This creates a fair representation of how many people have watched or at least started to watch the video.  So you can gather for each video exactly how much it is worth based on views. You would have to subtract for certain variables such as partial views and views made by the owner. Actually I am not sure who the actual owner of the content is on Youtube but someone probably owns that stuff. Hopefully it is the up-loader and not the up-loadee. Then Youtube sells ad space to individuals with “channels.” Just like on cable, except that it’s the entire world worth of videos made by millions of people. Youtube is creating the biggest and best database for human culture and technology. Education, self-help, entertainment, diaries, drama, comedy, food, and anything else you can think of is documented by Youtube and people can make money on their own bullshit videos. J

This is horrible news to big companies that give you package channel deals. It is an old model. They say here’s what you get for this content with no bargaining except if you want more and other channels, and then you can pay more. And all the content provided is controlled by other huge corporations who are related somehow to the local cable provider. So they all get fed off of your need for content. But with this blanketed model they can’t measure very accurately what shows are being watched. They can do surveys and censuses but those are not direct measurements of the data they want. (Stupid model)  

Youtube captures data on everything that happens on the site. Individual up-loaders can view graphs of view histories, advertisers can see who clicks on which ads and Youtube can track what up-loaders are getting the most views. This business model says something different than the old model. This model says here is all the content in the world, ‘now what do you like?’ Now the ads are focused and streamline. Most videos are short and so ads are often very short and the majority of content is rubbish and therefore has no ads. Videos can also be rated and commented on by the audience allowing for a feedback loop between content providers and viewers. This would ideally lead to better content, more efficient processes, more focused marketing, and evolve around the people instead of around large corporations. Add in social media and applications and it cannot fail. Individual websites can fail but digital content will be distributed.

Now onto the hybrid model: EXAMPLES are Hulu and Netflix. These companies provide you with mostly professional grade entertainment. They charge a set monthly price for a variety of services depending on the kind of content the user wants. Hulu also has a free service which I find perfectly adequate although lately I am thinking about upgrading to Hulu Plus because it would allow me more access to more interesting entertainment. The advertisements on Hulu are still short but there are usually too many of them during a show. One good option on some Hulu shows is the option to watch one very long advertisement at the beginning and then you can watch the rest of your show without any comm breaks. Netflix on the other hand does not have any advertisements at all. Not during shows or movies and not on its website. Netflix allows you to stream content through almost all major media devices. From phones to movie theaters and every size, make and model in between the internet content providers are here.

Too bad you still have to pay for internet access. When that is free I will be happy about that.

Entertainment will keep changing but it will only get more mobile and more interesting. It will evolve around viewers instead of around large corporations. Well at least it could or it might just seem like it’s controlled by we the people but really some group is manipulating the system and controlling it from the inside and it’s all based on a lie. In any case it is evolving and creating its own economy and we are all a part of that system. We vote with our wallets and our mices.