Message From Michael 
May 24, 2010
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUTUBE
FACING OFF WITH FACEBOOK
COCKTAIL CHATTER – AN
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUTUBE: It’s stunning (to me at least) to think that the omnipresent, ubiquitous, part-of-life-for-millions phenomenon known as YouTube is only five years old. Only five years old! There have been some mainstream stories about this, and YouTube has created a special five year channel to mark the occasion, but there has yet to be the definitive, sociological, anthropological examination... And this message isn’t it either, but we will at least give you some facts and factoids to consider.
In its announcement about the birthday, the Google-owned site noted that it receives Two Billion views a day – “nearly double the prime time audience of all three major
Viewing the YouTube five year channel is something between a walk down memory lane, and a sociological study, starting with the very first video of YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim’s visit to the San Diego Zoo and co-founder Steve Chen’s cat Slinky II. Online marketing website BrandRepublic cites five examples of YouTube videos that have impacted the media world, starting with one of my favorites – the Cadbury Gorilla which was the harbinger of thousands of ad spoofs to come. Add to that the ability of YouTube to make stars out of ordinary people… a/k/a Susan Boyle’s appearance on ITV’s hit TV show Britain’s Got Talent, which became the most watched video of 2009. Or YouTube bringing mainstream politics to young people – For example, President Barack Obama’s use of YouTube in his run for the Presidency, or British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s failure to steam the crisis surround MP’s expense accounts using YouTube. And, of course, the introduction of Flash Mob’s – highlighted by T-Mobile’s flash mob ad showing people dancing in a
One year after YouTube started came the next great evolution in media – Message from Michael. Okay, maybe not. But a review of messages and the YouTube timeline show some interesting coincidences. One of the first video break-outs cited in the Message, was the amazing rendition of Johann Pachelbel’s baroque classic, Canon, rendered by South Korean guitar player, FunTwo. After that it was Judson Lapply’s video, Evolution of Dance, which compressed 50 years of dance music into a six-minute video. Talking about ad spoofs that take on a life of their own, think of the Diet Coke – Mentos video. Then there’s Lonelygirl15 which may have been the first to capitalize on YouTube’s viral virulence to create a buzz for the launch of a show. The amazing Battle at Kruger video was one of the first to show the power of amateur videos going viral.
It probably says something that three of the last nine videos on the timeline are political – an interview with Barack Obama, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouriki Al-Maliki’s introduction of the Iraqi channel, and an interview with the Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes. But it also says something that two of the others include Ryan Higa, a young Japanese-American comedian in
Just to put those numbers in perspective, Televisions’ version of a hit sensation was election night Tuesday. On that night, Fox won the cable channel viewing contest with 2.11 Million viewers from 7 p.m. to Midnight – which was more than all the other cable channels combined. MSNBC was second with 879,000 viewers; CNN had 556,000 viewers; and Headline News had 392,000 viewers. The network evening news numbers for the latest week show that NBC is averaging 7.4 Million viewers, while ABC is right at 7 Million and CBS is just under 5 Million, according to Nielsen and website TVbythenumbers.com. For a little more perspective still, according to the U.S. Census ‘population clock,’ there are more than 309 Million people in the
Finally, for even more perspective still, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley told the BBC in an interview that while 2 Billion is an amazing number, he reminded the interviewer that people spend 15 minutes a day on the YouTube site compared to five hours a day watching television. And analysts quoted in the article also noted that despite its popularity, YouTube has yet to reach profitability, although they say 2010 may be the year it happens.
FACING OFF WITH FACEBOOK: As a follow-up to my previous message, the Facebook furor continues to be furious. According to a survey by IT security firm, Sophos, nearly two thirds (60%) of Facebook users are considering leaving the social network. Its survey of 1,588 users found that one in six (16%) say they have already stopped using the network because of “inadequate control over their data.” Thirty percent told the survey authors it is highly likely they will stop while another thirty percent said it was a possibility. However, two movements to either quit Facebook for a day or forever have gained little momentum. Website facebookprotest.com which urges people to stop using Facebook for one day (June 6th) has only gathered 3,203 fans and 1,695 Twitter followers. And another site, quitfacebookday.com, has only gathered 13,925 ‘quitters.’ Again, as a matter of numbers perspective, there are more than 400 Million Facebook subscribers.
Another social network, launched in part as a counter to Facebook’s privacy policy, Diaspora, which is part of kickstarter.com, is a ‘personal web server’ that has gathered only 5,737 ‘backers’ but they have pledged more than $184,000 in support. Website reclaimprivacy.org provides an even more pragmatic approach, with an open source method of scanning your Facebook privacy settings to see what is being made public. More than 58,000 people say they “like” the Facebook version website. Meanwhile, if you are interested in privacy issues, you can visit the American Librarians’ Association website, privacyrevolution.org, which carries the motto, “I am not an open book.” Others include the Open Net Initiative (opennet.net) which focuses on Internet filtering and censorship; while chillingeffects.org is a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and seven universities and colleges, “monitoring the legal climate for Internet activity.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: If you’re looking to get away from it all, an advertisement on TVNewsCheck may be just the thing. It’s offering a full service FCC licensed television station for sale in…. drum roll, please… the U.S. Virgin Islands. No price is mentioned, although it says it serves 110,000 people. And, yes, I did write; and, no, I haven’t heard back. And if you need some inspiration for such a venture, Forbes magazine provided a profile of the ten most “inspirational Billionaires.” Topping the list, Guy Laliberte, who started out as an according-playing stilt-walking, harmonica-playing performer on the streets of
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