NEW YORK (Associated Press) -- After landing a US$1.65 billion deal to sell their video sharing Web site to Google Inc., the co-founders of YouTube did the obvious: They posted a goofy, unrehearsed video, thanking the YouTube community for its support. But the cameraman poses a question to Chad Hurley, 29, and Steve Chen, 27, that goes unanswered: "What does (the deal) mean for the user community?" That's what thousands of YouTubers are wondering.
Will YouTube 2.0 still have room for the bedroom video makers that created the site's billion-dollar identity? Or will the little guy be crowded out by advertising and corporate involvement? "We could have never built this without the community. That is what we're fiercely protecting," Julie Supan, the senior director of marketing at YouTube, said Wednesday.
The YouTube community is also very protective -- including Richard Stern, better known as LazyDork, a rapping, dancing, opinion-spewing defender of the site's grass-roots nature. "The Wild West feel of YouTube is already slipping away, and within a few weeks it likely will be gone altogether," says Stern. YouTube isn't as lawless as the old West, but it has served as the gateway to a new online frontier. Since its start in February 2005, YouTube has become the pre-eminent site for Internet video, drawing a worldwide audience of 72.1 million in August.
Though enormously expansive, YouTube nevertheless has a distinct community of users who communicate by video and posted comments. This motley crew is made up of bloggers, vloggers and other users, many of whom bristled when stars like Paris Hilton and Diddy attempted to promote albums with YouTube video channels. Now, some are expecting other, larger entities to shake up the YouTube democracy, where amateurs stand on equal footing with the professionals. The pros are growing in number: YouTube has recently reached agreements with CBS Corp., Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, NBC Universal and Warner Music Group Corp. "What we've seen over the last year is, it doesn't matter if it's professional content or if it's user-generated content," says Supan. "What the community decides by is how entertaining is the content." --more--
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