Central Perk: 20 dec. 2014

sâmbătă, 20 decembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Evolution of YouTube: Will it Supplant Mainstream TV, Vanish, Evolve, or Languish?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014 01:23 PM PST

What will become of YouTube?

It started from nowhere about 10 years ago as an idea with no revenue and no content, then pretty quickly lots of content coupled with a plethora of copyright infringement lawsuits.

Today, YouTube gets 300 million hours of watching every day. Top content producers have millions of followers and make millions of dollars.

But where to from here?

New Play Button

The New York Times tackles that question in a fascinating story YouTube's Chief, Hitting a New 'Play' Button.

The article is about Susan Wojcicki, the chief executive of YouTube, how she got her start, and in turn how Google got its start. Wojcicki was Google's 16th employee, and she is still with Google.

The Times notes Smosh, a pair of 20-something lip-syncing comedians, have roughly 30 million subscribers to their various YouTube channels. PewDiePie, a 24-year-old Swede who provides humorous commentary while he plays video games, has a following of similar size.

"Every day, one billion people around the world watch more than 300 million hours of videos on YouTube. In November, 83 percent of Internet users in the United States watched a video on YouTube, according to comScore. In contrast successful network television shows like 'NCIS: New Orleans' or 'The Big Bang Theory' average a little more than half that in weekly viewership."

I'm at the other end of the extreme. I watch very little TV. In fact, I have never even heard of 'NCIS' or 'Big Bang'

It's a fascinating success story for 46-year old Ms. Wojcicki, one of the most powerful media executives in the world.

Where To Next?

We can all speculate, but "where-to from here" is unknown. Not even Wojcicki knows.

"Things are always changing. Part of being successful here is being comfortable with not knowing what's going to happen," said Wojcicki.

One thing for sure is that You-Tube will evolve. Expect more internet content, not less. Also expect more forays by Google into TV-land material.

From what we have seen so far, Wojcicki is still the right person to lead the way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Who let the air out of the balloon?

Who let the air out of the balloon?

Music, newspapers, books... most forms of media were exciting, high-pressure hothouses, environments with hits and winners and action and impact.

Many players in these industries are now trying to figure out where all the zing went. The mattering seems to have left. Where did it go?

It turns out that the air didn't get let out, the balloon disappeared.

Balloons have pressure because there's only one tiny opening. Scarce shelf space. Only room for one newspaper. Only forty titles on the Billboard chart. It's that opening that creates the environment that allows pressure to exist, that pulls the rest of the balloon taut.

But the opening is wide open now. The market has been offered infinity. Instead of a narrow, scarce selection of hits, those that consume media can have all of it, all the time. The long tail plus bite-sized pieces plus constant snacking.

A few generations ago, Gone With The Wind played at the only movie theater in town--every night for a year. Forty years ago, books stayed on the bestseller list for a year or more. Fifteen years ago, the front page ad on Yahoo was sold out for years in advance. Buying the one and only ad on the 'front page of the internet' was a no-brainer, a bargain at any price. Today, of course, there isn't a front page you can buy an ad on. No spot next to the cash register at the biggest chain of bookstores, either.

The abundance of choice feels like a good thing for those that want a choice. But yes, someone got rid of the balloon. All the economics are changing, as are consumption patterns, and they're shifting faster that the mindsets of those that create and publish.

Stop looking for the balloon. It's gone.