January 19, 2009

The YouTubing of TV (and our life)

After the YouTubing of Mainstream Media and the YouTubing of Entrepreuneurship we have now the YouTubing of TV! As the YouTube blog announced on 15 January "YouTube has partnered directly with major TV and set-top box manufacturers to bring YouTube into the living room". It goes on "Well, now that's possible via YouTube for Television, initially available through the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii game consoles at www.youtube.com/tv. Currently in beta, the TV Website offers a dynamic, lean-back, 10-foot television viewing experience through a streamlined interface that enables you to discover, watch and share YouTube videos on any TV screen with just a few quick clicks of your remote control. With enlarged text and simplified navigation, it makes watching YouTube on your TV as easy and intuitive as possible". and ends with the nice advice :" So grab some popcorn, gather your friends and sit back and enjoy the YouTube TV Website".
A new, not unexpected, move of YouTube in line with the Red Queen Effect that I wrote about earlier.
With so many thousands video downloads per hour I am wondering how many productive hours are lost every year for manking all these (mostly lousy) videos and what is the total cost of this in global scale. An interesting subject for a Master or even a PhD dissertation.
It would be even more interesting to calculate and add the hours (and costs) of those looking to the YouTube videos. I have the feeling that the total costs would scare even YouTube.