Tag: YouTube

Estimate Puts YouTube’s Gross Revenue At $945m

An important, if not surprising, item: Another Google/YouTube exec has voiced his opinion that YouTube will be profitable this year. More interestingly, an outside analyst has done the same, and also forecast a gross revenue figure of almost $1 billion.

Let’s start by talking about Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney, who generated that estimate. As Peter Kafka explained, Mahaney took MySpace’s established revenue-to-page view ratio and applied it to YouTube’s stats. In this manner, he predicted that YouTube will earn $945 million and $614 million this year in gross and net revenue, respectively.

Next year, Mahaney thinks YouTube might earn $1.13 billion and $737 million in gross and net revenue.

As for the other man who believes YouTube will do more than break even, he’s Patrick Walker, a director of video partnerships for Google and YouTube. Walker thinks YouTube’s ability to help sell CDs and DVDs will prove important, along with the introduction of long-form videos. The site’s established knack at getting lots of people to watch ads should be handy, too, of course.

Now there’s just the matter of whether or not Google will see fit to inform us about YouTube’s performance as time goes by, since the company’s generally kept exact figures under wrap.

March 5, 2010
YouTube Changes Default Size on Embeds

YouTube has changed the default size for embedded videos. By default they’re getting bigger at either 480×385 for a 4:3 video, or 640×385 for a 16:9 video. YouTube says it went with these sizes, because they will give most viewers the best viewing experience because they better match current video encoding sizes.

"A video’s life on YouTube is just the beginning; embedding gives it a life off of the site. Just look at your favorite blogger and they’re likely to be embedding YouTube content in their posts," says YouTube Senior Web Developer Geoff Stearns. "In fact, almost every popular video on the site is first made famous by embeds on the Web. That number can be as high as 50% of views in the first 48 hours, kicking off a great cycle."

"When using the ‘Play in HD’ option, it’s best to embed the player at a very large size (at least 1280×745) in order to accommodate the large size of the video," says Stearns. "If you play HD video in a small player, the user’s computer will have to scale down the video to fit within the player, costing the user extra CPU cycles and bandwidth, which may result in choppy playback. It’s always best to play the video size that best fits the size of the video player. And if you want even better performance when watching HD content, you can choose to watch it in full-screen."

When users click the embed code, on a video page, they will be able to choose the following for the video player:

– The color and size
– Whether or not to include related videos
– Whether or not to display the player border
– Whether or not to play in HD by default — triggers video resolutions of 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080p)

This week YouTube also expanded its auto-captioning program. This is a tool that combines some of the speech-to-text algorithms from Google’s Voice Search to automatically generate video captions when requested by viewers. More on that here.

March 5, 2010
YouTube Expands Auto-Captioning Program

Whether they’re used for the benefit of the hard of hearing, people who speak a different language, or just folks who want to watch videos while at work or in a library, captions can be helpful in all sorts of circumstances. And now, captions should become much more common, as all YouTube users will be able to take advantage of an auto-caption tool.

This tool is designed to work on all English-language clips that have relatively decent audio. A "request processing" button will be available for content creators who want to minimize a processing delay, and after the English caption has been created, they’ll have the option to translate it into any of about 50 languages.

Interesting, right? Popular, too, if YouTube’s predictions prove correct (see the graph below).

The one slight catch (aside from the English-only and audio quality restrictions touched on earlier) relates to accuracy; YouTube’s making no guarantees that its captions will be perfect. But content creators will have the option of editing the captions, so this is hardly a dealbreaker.

A YouTube representative assured WebProNews in an email, "This is an exciting moment for us and represents a culmination of 3 years of work at Google and YouTube. Auto-Captions for everyone represents one of the largest projects of its kind and will open up millions of YouTube videos to deaf and hard-of-hearing."

March 4, 2010
Tufts Brings YouTube Into The Admissions Process

YouTube’s a site that’s been used by nonprofit organizations to address serious human rights issues. It’s also a site that’s been used to exhibit children kicking adults in the crotch. Now, in a move that sort of bridges the gap, Tufts University has started allowing applicants to post clips featuring themselves.

"Lee Coffin, Tufts’ dean of admissions, says the clips showcase a creativity and personality that would be hard to convey on paper," according to Tracy Jan. "The idea is part of an effort begun by the university in 2006 to evaluate aspects of applicants’ intelligence not reflected in SAT scores and grades."

It’s apparently a rather popular idea, too. Around 1,000 applicants made videos, and as you can conclude after watching the example below, many of them had fun, not just sitting in a straight-backed chair and talking at the camera.

At the same time, Tufts hasn’t made the videos in any way mandatory (the school received about 15,000 applications all in all), so folks with stage fright aren’t penalized. And employees of the admissions office are keeping in mind that not everyone has access to top-notch camera equipment and editing gear.

Tufts is a rather prestigious university; it should be interesting to see if other schools follow its lead.

February 22, 2010
Google Video Compression Developer Acquisition Complete

Update: Late Friday, Google announced that it closed the On2 Technologies acquisition, valued at about $124.6 million, after On2’s shareholders voted to approve the transaction.

"We’re excited to welcome the On2 team to Google and to continue to enhance the video experience for users on the web," said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "Through rapid innovation in browsers and web standards, the Internet is becoming the leading platform for development. We believe On2’s engineering talent and technology will be an incredible asset for us as we work to improve this platform."

Original Article: Google has announced that it is acquiring video compression technology developer On2 in a deal valued at about $106.5 million. Specifically, each outstanding share of On2 common stock will be converted into $0.60 worth of Google class A common stock in a stock-for-stock transaction.

"Today video is an essential part of the web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform," says Sundar Pichai, Vice President, Product Management, Google. "We are committed to innovation in video quality on the web, and we believe that On2’s team and technology will help us further that goal."

"We’re thrilled that On2 is joining one of the world’s most innovative companies," says Matt Frost, interim CEO of On2. "After intensive review of On2 products, Google confirmed our long-held beliefs as to the quality of our video technologies. This transaction is a testament to the hard work of every On2 employee and the strongest possible endorsement of our products and people. On2 will continue to improve, support and sell our products throughout the transition. We believe that Google shares our ambitions and know that our products and expertise, combined with Google’s globally recognized brand, ingenuity and resources, will create an incredible team."

The deal is subject to On2 stockholder approval, as well as regulatory clearances and closing conditions. It’s expected to be complete in the fourth quarter of this year.

Google says it’s not at liberty to discuss the specifics of plans that will stem from this deal, one might speculate that it has something to do with YouTube, the world’s most popular video site, which Google owns, and has just introduced an AdSense-style program, which will surely rake in some money.

February 21, 2010
YouTube Streams Tiger Woods Press Conference Live

Most people I know are pretty tired of hearing about Tiger Woods, but the world is still apparently eager to hear what he has to say at his press conference today. Currently, "what time is tiger woods press conference" is listed on Google Trends, and "Tiger Woods" is a trending topic on Twitter.

Clearly a lot of people still care. If you fall into this category, you may be interested to know that YouTube will be streaming his press conference today live at 8am PT at YouTube.com/citizentube."We’re experimenting with a live-streamed press conference on YouTube," YouTube’s Chris Dale tells WebProNews. "Anyone in the world can watch the Tiger Woods press conference."

Regardless of whether or not you will be tuning into the Tiger Woods press conference, the larger picture is that YouTube has simply become a legitimate news source (they do supply non-celebrity news as well). It has grown a lot since its launch. It used to be considered a great place to upload silly cat videos, and while it still is, it is also now a place to get breaking news as it happens.

This is not the first time YouTube has offered live streaming of a press conference. For example, back in April, they offered an Obama press conference on his first 100 days in office.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, so a lot of people are bound to be watching Tiger’s words there. The more events YouTube streams live, the more people are likely to consider it as a go-to news source.

It is worth mentioning that a variety of other sites will be providing coverage as well, but considering the size of YouTube’s user-base, I’d say it has an advantage.

February 20, 2010
US Speedskating Taps Facebook And Twitter

United States Speedskating is turning to social media to connect with fans and build on publicity generated by the recent sponsorship of Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Nation.

"US Speedskating is taking a leadership position by embracing opportunities to connect with fans on social networks," said Libby Issendorf, a social media strategist with the Flint Group, a Midwest-based communications agency that has been working with the team since early January to create and implement the campaign.

"This is really the first winter Olympics held since social media has been so widely adopted," she added. "Individual athletes have typically used these media more extensively than entire teams."

US Speedskating is using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share stories, highlight athletes, promote the sport and grow and engage its online fanbase.

The team also hopes it will find a title sponsor to replace Dutch bank DSB, which went bankrupt a few months before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 games, leaving the program in need of funds. Colbert stepped in temporarily, raising $300,000, but the team needs a gold-level sponsor to commit $300,000 a year for the next four years.

"In addition to creating a fan community, social media has turned out to be a unique way to help the team with fundraising," said Debbie Morrison, who serves as agency team lead. Along with Issendorf, she’ll be in Vancouver as part of the official US Speedskating team’s delegation and will be posting and twittering throughout the Games.

The US Speedskating Facebook page will act as the campaign’s home base, with three to four posts per day, many featuring videos and photos. The Facebook page will also include a tab highlighting featured bloggers who follow the team.

US Speedskating has won 75 Olympic medals, making it the most successful winter sport in the United States.

"Speedskating is a sport that flies under the radar most of the time," said Issendorf. "It gets a moment in the spotlight every four years. Connecting with fans through social media gives us the opportunity to attract more of them and keep them engaged after the Olympics are over."

February 15, 2010
YouTube Advertises Presence Of New Iran Protest Clips

Yesterday, Iranian authorities enacted a ban on Gmail, saying they’d introduce a government-sponsored (and presumably government-monitored) email service to replace it. Now, as YouTube’s seeing an influx of protest videos, Google’s taken a moment to mark the Iranian government’s lack of control.

To be clear: these videos are not all specifically related to the Gmail development. Some Iranians are instead using today, which is the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic, to protest the presidential election and the subsequent crackdowns on free speech.

Google just helped to put a spotlight on the clips and the deteriorating situation. Olivia Ma wrote on the YouTube Blog, "[T]hese extraordinary videos provide an exclusive window into what’s taking place on the ground, as foreign press have been banned from the country. YouTube remains blocked in Iran, but dissidents are passing videos to friends out of the country and using Internet circumvention technologies to post the footage, according to news reports and correspondence with those on the ground."

She then added, "We’re tracking the videos on Citizentube . . . . A playlist can be found here."

Free speech advocates will no doubt find it reassuring that Google hasn’t tried to make nice with Iran’s government following the Gmail ban.

February 11, 2010
YouTube Safety Mode Goes Beyond Human Review

This week, YouTube launched Safety Mode, an opt-in setting that helps users screen out potentially objectionable videos. We asked YouTube how it works. For example, is there human intervention involved?

"Safety Mode goes above and beyond the flagging system and manual review to use community signals to filter out content that may be objectionable," YouTube tells WebProNews. "YouTube’s filters use proprietary technology and algorithms to identify and filter potentially objectionable content."

That’s about as in-depth as they were willing to get on that, but YouTube has acknowledged that it’s not 100% perfect, calling it just another step in their ongoing desire to give users more control over what they see on the site.

Don’t expect YouTube to start accepting more "objectionable" content now that it has Safety Mode available. All content still has to comply with YouTube’s community guidelines.

To use Safety Mode, simply click on the link at the bottom of any video page. The setting can be locked on that browser with your YouTube password.

February 11, 2010
The Latest in Google’s Effort to Make the Web Faster

YouTube has just launched a "Speed Dashboard", which makes speed information about videos available to users. YouTube’s Chris Dale tells us it "offers granular insight into what your YouTube video speed looks like."

"We think it’s pretty cool and all part of our goal to make the web a faster place," he adds.

Factors which affect your YouTube video speed include the speed of your Internet connection, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) you’re using, and the distance to the video servers. Users can compare their video speed to that of others in different regions and using different ISPs.

"We may also list the YouTube speeds for users in your neighborhood but with different ISPs," says YouTube. "The speed numbers are calculated by measuring the speed at which YouTube video is received by the browser. This is then averaged over the previous 30 days provided you’ve used the same browser during this time period."

Speed is something that Google as a whole has placed a great deal on emphasis over the last year or so. For one, they’re talking about making page speed one of the factors they use in ranking search results. The company has also provided webmasters with numerous tools to help them increase their own speeds. More about Google’s initiative for making the web master can be found here.

The YouTube dashboard can be viewed by going to youtube.com/my_speed.

February 11, 2010
Online TV Shows May Get More Ad-Heavy

For the most part, online video has been much less ad-heavy than television programming. It is this very fact that has likely been a large part of the medium’s popularity. Things may be changing, however.

According to Advertising Age, Nielsen is planning on making data available about the viewing of commercials that run in particular shows , whether they are viewed on TV or online. The data would start being available in September, and the publication says it will become the basis for ad negotiations next February.

"But here’s the catch: For Nielsen to be able to provide the commercial rating, shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV," says AdAge’s Brian Steinberg. "If this system were adopted en masse — and it’s not clear that it would be — online viewing might be crammed just as full of commercials as the more traditional TV-watching experience."

"Indeed, viewing programs on Hulu, the online video site owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney, means encountering significantly fewer ads than one would see watching TV. And Disney’s ABC.com has met with some success by running ABC shows with just a few ads, often from a single advertiser," he adds. "But many TV executives say these methods don’t bring much, if any, profit — and therefore cannot continue."

Online video has enjoyed tremendous growth over the last several years. In December, 178 million Americans watched 33 billion videos online, according to data from comScore. About 40% of that was at Google sites (like YouTube). The second largest amount of market share went to Hulu, at just 3%.

YouTube isn’t necessarily the place people go to watch full episodes of television shows. Hulu is. If videos at sites like Hulu become more ad-heavy, the market share gap could just increase even greater. It could also have an impact on both paid TV show downloads and piracy.

Related Articles:

> Google To Get More Interactive With Mobile Video Ads

> IAB Releases Ad Unit Guidelines Updates

> YouTube Videos In Adsense Could Drive Clicks

February 8, 2010
Clicker Partners With UCLA On Online Video Site

Online video guide Clicker said today it has partnered with UCLA on a new service bringing online entertainment and university video content to students via the school’s Web portal, MyUCLA.

The partnership between Clicker and UCLA will give students access to content from sites and networks like ABC, MTV, PBS, Hulu and YouTube. The content will feature television shows, music videos, movies, web originals, as well as UCLA content such as lectures and symposiums.

"College students are clearly some of the most avid consumers of online media," said Jim Lanzone, founder and CEO of Clicker.

"Our new service will give UCLA students a more effective way to find legal online entertainment, and a more efficient way to access UCLA’s substantial body of original videos, together in one seamless experience. UCLA on Clicker will take the guesswork out of finding what is available to watch, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching online."

Clicker said its co-branded version of its service combines its existing 600,000-episode catalog with original videos from UCLA. In addition, UCLA on Clicker was developed and will be supported without student dollars. The site is available to UCLA students for free.

Related Articles:

> Online Video Viewing Continues To Boom

> 35 Ways to Improve Your Online Video Performance

> Facebook Catapults Into Third Place Among Video Sites

February 2, 2010
YouTube Launches its Univision Channel

In November, YouTube announced that it had struck a partnership with one of the top Spanish-language broadcast networks in America, Univision. The partnership would see YouTube providing both short clips and full shows from the network. YouTube has now announced the official launch of the Univision channel.

The channel contains content from Univision’s three major networks: Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión.

"Some of the most popular shows on the channel include Univision’s morning show Despierta América (Wake-Up America); TeleFutura’s entertainment show Escándalo TV (ShowBiz TV), and Galavisión’s home decorating series Decorando Contigo (Decorating with You), among many others. The Univision channel on YouTube will also premiere weekly show recaps made just for YouTube viewers," says Shanna Preve, Strategic Partnerships at YouTube. "These videos will feature top Univision talent summarizing the best moments from Univision shows in the last week."

"The partnership provides more premium, current, monetizeable content for our advertisers interested in reaching the growing online Hispanic demographic; Kraft Foods is the channel’s exclusive launch sponsor," adds Preve.

The Univision YouTube channel represents the first time Univision programming has been made available on the Internet outside of the network’s own properties (at least legally).

Related Articles:

> YouTube, Univision Announce Partnership

> YouTube Getting Serious About This Video Rental Thing

> YouTube Makes Changes to Where Users Spend Most Time

February 1, 2010
YouTube Getting Serious About This Video Rental Thing
YouTube recently started experimenting with renting video content as a potential new way for content producers to make money, which led to the question: will YouTube be the place to rent movies in the future?

YouTube kicked this initiative off by offering a few independent films from Sundance, an experiment which some saw as a failure, but YouTube appears to have found a success, saying that they increased exposure for the films by about 60%. YouTube is now looking to expand the content that it offers for rental, and is calling upon partners to bring more to the table.

YouTube has invited a small number of additional beta partners in different categories to begin offering videos for rent, and now thousands of videos are available. YouTube offers the following examples:
"Through this new offering, content owners now have control over the entire lifecycle of their work," YouTube says. "They can migrate videos from rental to ad supported; they can set the price and rental duration. In short, they can test and customize their distribution to fit their audience’s habits and their business’ needs."

The company thinks topics and genres with small, but passionate audiences will better monetize with the rental model, as opposed to the ad supported one. They also note that paying users generally expect a longer duration from videos, as well as higher production value.

YouTube’s goal is to make rental an option for all content creators, and the company will invite more and more as improvements are made. There is currently an application process that content providers can go through if they want to monetize their videos this way.

Related Articles:

> Barclays Analyst Predicts YouTube Profitability

> YouTube To Experiment With Live Sports Coverage

> Google Gets Patent For YouTube Gaming
January 29, 2010
Is The Viral Video

We’re sure you’ve either seen or heard about “General” Larry Platt’s American Idol audition, Pants On The Ground. Not sure how you could’ve missed it, as it’s been everywhere… it was even sung by the Minnesota Vikings after they defeated the Dallas Cowboys during the NFL playoffs.

Pants On The Ground has been viewed well over 2 million times on YouTube and Platt has even performed his “hit song” on the morning talk show “The View”.

But, is all the publicity Platt receiving justified? Let us know what you think.

Michigan based hip-hop duo, the Green Brothers, have posted a video on YouTube entitled "Back Pockets On The Floor" that has a striking resemblance to Platt’s viral hit. The Green Brothers song was copyrighted and recorded in 1996, 14 years before Platt graced the audition stage of American Idol.

The following description accompanies the video on YouTube…

This is in regards to the General Larry Platt "Pants on The Ground". His song is a take off of the Green Brothers song " Back Pockets On The Floor’. Back Pockets On The Floor was written by G. Green and was copyrighted and recorded by the Green Brothers in 1996. The General’s song have the same intent, idea and in part the same message. YOU BE THE JUDGE AMERICA!!

It should be noted Gerald Green, a member of the hip-hop duo, holds no grudge against Platt and even "wishes him well".

So, what do you think: Did Larry Platt rip-off "Back Pockets On The Floor"? Tell us what you think.

January 28, 2010
YouTube Movie Rental Experiment Fails (So Far)

On Friday, YouTube started a movie rental experiment involving five motion pictures from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festivals. Now, although the trial run is several days away from being over, it’s starting to look like the word "failure" will have to be applied.

Ryan Lawler took a look at how many views each of the Sundance videos had chalked up as of last night. The totals were sad, with Bass Ackwards, Homewrecker, The Cove, Children of Invention, and One Too Many Mornings receiving 308, 308, 303, 301, and 250 views, respectively.

This indicates an almost extreme disinterest on the part of YouTube users; lots of random clips that haven’t been mentioned on the YouTube Blog and in various places all over the Web attract more viewers.

There could be a few valid excuses for these numbers, however. First is the simple idea of the view counters getting stuck, and of the five videos, YouTube’s only indicating that one has received additional views since Lawler performed his analysis, so this is a real possibility.

The second issue relates to YouTube’s country restrictions. In response to the YouTube Blog post announcing the movie rentals, several commenters have complained about geographic blocks, so there may be a sizable international audience that’s been shut out.

Finally, it’s possible that the movies are just bad (at least by YouTube users’ standards). Ratings have been disabled for two of the films, and the other three are averaging roughly two out of five stars.

This last explanation wouldn’t salvage the current experiment, of course, but it might be that the general concept of renting movies through YouTube hasn’t quite run into a brick wall.

UPDATE: A YouTube representative was good enough to reach out to WPN and offer the site’s perspective on the rental experiment. He stated, "[T]hese are independent films, not Hollywood blockbusters and both you and Ryan seem to be judging them on Hollywood standards. The vast majority of independent films created every year don’t find an audience. Our goal with rolling out the Rentals offering at Sundance was to give these filmmakers to find that audience, regardless of size."

The representative then supplied a few interesting statistics. He wrote, "Out of the of the roughly 9000 films that were submitted to Sundance in 2009, about 53 of them found some form of distribution. . . . Attendance for films like these at Sundance averages around 500 people. With YouTube they’ve increased that exposure by about 60%. I’d say that’s a stat we can all be proud of."

Related Articles:

> Hulu (Again) Considers Monthly Fee

> Will YouTube Be The Place To Rent Movies?

> Barclays Analyst Predicts YouTube Profitability

January 26, 2010
YouTube Renting Sundance Film Festival Movies

According to the YouTube blog, YouTube has partnered with the Sundance Film Festival to make five films from the 2010 and 2009 festivals available for rent for U.S. users on YouTube starting this Friday and running through Sunday, January 31.

These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option. Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights.

The videos will cost around $5 but the exact price will be set by individual filmmakers. Coverage from USA Today mentions that YouTube will split revenues, but will give the lion’s share to the filmmaker.

Comments

January 21, 2010
Will YouTube Be the Place to Rent Movies?

YouTube has made a couple of big announcements. First of all, they are going to start renting movies. They are kicking off this initiative by partnering with the Sundance Film Festival, making five films from 2010 and 2009 available for rent for U.S. users. This starts Friday and will run through Sunday January 31.

In addition to those five films, another small collection of rental videos from other U.S. partners across different industries (including health and education) will be made available in the coming weeks. "We’re also excited to put out the call for more independent filmmakers to join the rental program as part of our ‘Filmmakers Wanted’ campaign at the festival," says the YouTube team.

Trailer for one of the five Sundance films

"These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option," the team adds. "Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights."

This could lead to something huge for the movie rental industry. If major movie studios get on board with this…just imagine. YouTube is far and away the biggest video site on the web. What if you could just rent all of your movies from there? That could give even Netflix a run for its money, especially as Internet-ready televisions become more mainstream. Going that far is only speculative of course, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

To rent the movies YouTube will be offering, users can use Google Checkout to pay (what a great way for Google to drive more people to that too).

YouTube also announced that it is introducing an experimental version of an HTML5-supported video player. "Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback," says YouTube engineer Kevin Carle. "This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin."

"Our support for HTML5 is an early experiment, and there are some limitations," he adds. "HTML5 on YouTube doesn’t support videos with ads, captions, or annotations and it requires a browser that supports both the video tag and h.264 encoded video (currently that means Chrome, Safari, and ChromeFrame on Internet Explorer). We will be expanding the capabilities of the player in the future, so get ready for new and improved versions in the months to come."

The HTML5 experiment can be found here. If you’re interested, you can join the experiment, which will enable HTML5 video for your browser, if you use one of the ones mentioned.

Related Articles:

> Barclays Analyst Predicts YouTube Profitability

> YouTube To Experiment With Live Sports Coverage

> Google Gets Patent For YouTube Gaming

January 21, 2010
YouTube To Experiment With Live Sports Coverage

Sorry, American sports fans – there are no signs that YouTube’s working with the NBA, NHL, or MLB. But reports indicate that YouTube will soon start streaming cricket matches, and even as this should interest a lot of other people in the world, it might also lead to other experiments.

YouTube is supposed to show 59 Indian Premier League matches starting March 12th. The content should be available to people in multiple regions, too, although it’s possible that some countries will be excluded for the sake of not stepping on broadcasters’ toes.

As for the business side of things, this isn’t intended to be some sort of money-losing attention-getter. Andrew McCormick wrote, "YouTube wants to sign a global sponsor and multiple local backers as part of its strategy to make money from the coverage."

And Bruce Daisley, Google UK’s leader for YouTube and display ads, said, "We’re keen to see how the community will take to live sport. There’s a real interest in live events, so we’re excited."

Perhaps heavy-duty sports fans should tune in regardless of whether they like cricket, then. If things go well, it sounds as if this could be a first step to getting more live sports coverage onto YouTube.

Related Articles:

> Barclays Analyst Predicts YouTube Profitability

> Hitwise: Vevo Still Dependent On YouTube

> Google Gets Patent For YouTube Gaming

January 19, 2010
Turkey Blocking More Than 3,000 Websites

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a human rights watchdog, called on Turkey today to reform or abolish its restrictive Internet policy.

"At present, 3,700 Internet sites are blocked in Turkey, including YouTube, GeoCities, and Google sites," said Miklos Haraszti, an OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.

"Even as some of the content that is deemed ‘bad’, such as child pornography, must be sanctioned, the law is unfit to achieve this. Instead, by blocking access to entire websites from Turkey, it paralyzes access to numerous modern file sharing or social networks."

In a report Haraszti presented at Bilgi University in Istanbul, Ankara State University and at the International Law Congress of the Ankara Bar Association, he noted that, while in Turkey, he was unable to access even the OSCE’s YouTube website.

"Blocking access inside of Turkey is an affront to the public’s right to the entirety of the Internet, said Haraszti. "Numerous Criminal Code provisions are applied against media workers, and as a result, journalists risk imprisonment for carrying out their work."

"Therefore ‘reform or abolish’ the Internet Law is our main recommendation. I hope that the Turkish authorities will soon remove the blocking provisions that prevent Turkish citizens from being part of today’s global information society."

Related Articles:

> Turkey Asks Google For $47 Million In Taxes

> Legalized Online Gambling Would Bring In Billions

> NY Lawmakers Approve Internet Tax

January 18, 2010
Barclays Analyst Predicts YouTube Profitability

In a financial sense, Google’s acquisition of YouTube has never made a lot of sense; the site, which sold for $1.65 billion, hasn’t even turned a profit on a quarter-to-quarter basis yet. But according to a prominent analyst, that’s about to change.

Doug Anmuth, who works for Barclays Capital, said today in a note, "[I]n 2010 we believe YouTube will start contributing positively to EPS. . . . [W]ith YouTube monetizing more than 1 billion video views every week, and with strong sell-out rates on its home-page from larger advertisers – we note 90% of the top 50 Ad Age have advertised on YouTube – we believe the site can profitably take share of the branded display & video market."

Anmuth then shared a couple of concrete numbers, continuing, "We project YouTube to generate $700 million in revenue in 2010, up 55% Y/Y."

While $700 million might be good or bad, depending on what scale it’s measured on (remember, Google’s market cap is in the neighborhood of $190 billion), the 55 percent figure is great. Entities that have been around for more than a few years don’t often pull off that sort of dramatic improvement, and it would be even more impressive given the current economic climate.

Hat tip goes to Peter Kafka.

Related Articles:

> Hitwise: Vevo Still Dependent On YouTube

> Google Gets Patent For YouTube Gaming

> YouTube Embraces Role In Iranian Protests

January 14, 2010