However, if you’re not your own boss, there’s no amount of dancing that will get you out of answering why your proprietary audiences are smaller than the competition’s.
SNAPSHOT: YOUTUBE
YEAR FOUNDED: February 20056 (purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in October 2006).7
PROPRIETARY AUDIENCES: VIEWERS as well as AMPLIFIERS, and SUBSCRIBERS. Videos themselves can drive SEEKER, AMPLIFIER, and JOINER audience growth in any number of ways.
EFFORT REQUIRED: Moderate to high depending on volume and complexity of video production.
WHO OWNS THE DATA: You own your video, but you grant YouTube a nonexclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to do what they want with your video. SUBSCRIBERS are yours, but not portable to other channels.
USERS WORLDWIDE: 1 billion unique users/month (as of August 2013).8
VIDEO VIEWS/UPLOADS: As of August 2013, more than 100 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute, and over 6 billion hours of video were watched each month.
SKILLS REQUIRED: Video production, content creation.
GATEKEEPERS: YouTube/Google and users.
STRENGTHS: Free hosting, and instant worldwide distribution of video content that’s indexed as part of Google (world’s most popular search engine) and YouTube (world’s most popular video viewing site and second most popular search engine).
YouTube mobilizes the video content for you so it can be viewed on most any device (laptop, smartphone, tablet, Web-enabled TV, etc.)
A wealth of free, how-to video production and YouTube optimization content available on demand.9
Ability to brand your channel and videos as well as annotate your videos with embedded links that can drive VIEWERS to subscribe, click, or comment.
Ability to monetize video content through Google advertising.
Free, easy-to-use video analytics tell you how many viewers and SUBSCRIBERS you have as well as the average viewing time of your video content.
CHALLENGES: All built on YouTube/Google’s land—except for the largest video producers, everyone has very little negotiating power.
Ad revenue splits weighted heavily in favor of YouTube/Google. No direct relationships with advertisers.10
Comments section can become a virtual Wild West of profane, sexist, and racist statements if not moderated.11
1. Jake Coyle, “YouTube Says the Battle with TV Is Already Over,” The Seattle Times, May 2, 2013, http://seattletimes.com/html/entertainment/2020906479_apusyoutubebrandcast.
2. Greg Sterling, “Report: YouTube Generated $350M in Mobile Revenue in Past Six Months,” MarketingLand, June 6, 2013, http://marketingland.com/report-youtube-now-generating-350m-in-mobile-revenue-for-google-47165.
3. “The Orabrush Story: How a Utah Man Used YouTube to Build a Multi-million Dollar Business,” Google Official Blog, November 15, 2011, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/orabrush-story-how-utah-man-used.
4. Grady Smith, “The New Face of YouTube,” Entertainment Weekly, March 1, 2013, www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20679715,00.
5. “Evolution of Dance,” YouTube video, 6:01, posted by Judson Laipply, April 6, 2006, www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dMH0bHeiRNg.
6. “About YouTube,” YouTube.com, accessed August 6, 2013, www.youtube.com/yt/about/.
7. Associated Press, “Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 billion,” NBC News, October 10, 2006, www.nbcnews.com/id/15196982/ns/business-us_business/t/google-buys-youtube-billion/#.UbByd5zNnE1.
8. “Statistics,” YouTube.com, accessed August 6, 2013, www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.
9. “Videos about Making Videos,” YouTube.com, accessed August 6, 2013, www.youtube.com/user/videotoolbox.
10. Jason Calacanis, “I Ain’t Gonna Work on YouTube’s Farm No More,” Launch Blog, June 2, 2013, http://blog.launch.co/blog/i-aint-gonna-work-on-youtubes-farm-no-more.
11. Pierce Sharpe, “Cheerios Ad Sparks Racist Comments on YouTube,” WTVR, June 3, 2013, http://wtvr.com/2013/06/03/cheerios-ad-comments/.
Chapter 16
Google+: The Great Unknown
What’s he building in there? What’s he building in there? We have a right to know . . .1
—Tom Waits
On his 1999 album Mule Variations, musical raconteur Tom Waits performs a haunting spoken-word piece titled “What’s He Building?” As metal clanks in the background, Waits assumes the persona of a paranoid homeowner contemplating his mysterious neighbor’s dead lawn, frequent deliveries, and late-night activities in the basement. The nervous observations build to a climax in which Waits asks the penultimate question—“What’s he building in there?”—before ending the song with a dose of righteous indignation by stating, “We have a right to know!”
For the past few years, marketers peering over Google’s fence have been wondering the exact same thing about Google+, the search giant’s high-profile entry into the social networking space. What is it? What are they doing? What are they building in there?