YouTube Is Hot

Michelle Quinn of Knight Ridder Newspapers reports on the trendiest of the trendy in cybersites ...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Allen Ng's YouTube habit is eating into his TV habit.

Every chance he gets, the 14-year-old from Fremont, Calif., checks the web site YouTube to watch short videos of badminton clips, excerpts of Chinese movies and funny, amateur productions made and posted by strangers from around the world. At school, the buzz among Allen's friends isn't about TV but about quirky YouTube videos — like the Norwegian man recently performing as a human sound-effects machine.

"I go to YouTube when I get bored," Allen said.

YouTube and other video-sharing Web sites signal a shift in the way entertainment will be made and consumed in the future. They're creating a new form of television that's at once personal, grass-roots and unfettered.

With the emergence of technology for easily sharing video over the Internet, viewers are gaining the autonomy to choose what, when and where they watch — be it on an iPod, laptop or desktop computer. And the masses are getting an opportunity to create and experiment with video while bypassing the central filter of a TV network.

No company epitomizes these rapid changes more than YouTube. In the past six months, YouTube, a 27-employee company housed above a pizzeria in San Mateo, Calif., has become a new global stage. Visitors to the site view more than 50 million videos a day, mostly made by amateurs. Its audience has mushroomed to 12.5 million a month, making it the chief place people go online to watch video. It has become one of the 50 most visited Web sites overall.

Many YouTube videos are forgettable — traffic mishaps, lonely teenagers, babies crawling, skateboard tricks. Some are blurry or shaky. Virtually all are short clips, lasting one to two minutes. Some are copyrighted, lifted right off the TV. But there's also a lot of original talent on display.

"What really motivates people is being seen and getting a response," said Chad Hurley, 29, a YouTube co-founder and chief executive, who shakes his blond hair out of his face when he talks.

Confident of success

For the co-founder of a company that has come out of nowhere fast, Hurley is surprisingly confident about YouTube's prospects. He is quintessential Silicon Valley, earnest about how technology can change the world but vague (perhaps purposely so) about how it will make money. "We are just trying to help people find an easy way to share their experiences," he said.

But other companies such as technology giants Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! are offering online video too. Smaller players too, such as Revver, Grouper and iFilm, are competing with YouTube for interesting content. MySpace, the social-networking Web site popular among teens, has ramped up its video-sharing features online, which may eat into YouTube's market.

Indeed, Web sites such as YouTube, whose motto is "Broadcast Yourself," have a long way to go before killing off the boob tube.

In a recent survey for the Online Publishers Association, 24 percent of Internet users said they watched online video at least once a week and only 5 percent watched it daily.

The average person watches four hours and 52 minutes of TV a day, according to Nielsen Media Research. On average, each YouTube visitor spends nearly 16 minutes on the site, according to Hitwise, an online measurement firm in New York.

For now, YouTube is a pastime mostly for the young. Thirty-one percent of its visitors are 18 to 24, according to Hitwise. And that is probably the age range of most of YouTube's budding video makers.

Online video is nothing new. But over the past year, the spread of fast Internet connections, easy-to-use editing software and cheap camcorders and camera phones have turned it into a mass phenomenon.

Rising stars

Videos of current events, such as the July 2005 terrorist blasts in London and Hurricane Katrina were e-mailed around the world instantly, sometimes making it onto network news.

"People don't want to be the next Spielberg, but they want to express themselves," said J.D. Lasica, executive director of Ourmedia, a not-for-profit Web site for videos and other content.

YouTube's beginnings are classic Silicon Valley. Co-founders Hurley, who studied art and graphic design in college, and Steve Chen, an engineer, met in 1999 while working at PayPal, the online-payment service now owned by eBay. They attended a party in January 2005 where someone made a video. But they couldn't find an easy way to share the video online.

They began to develop technology that makes it easy to post and watch videos online, no matter what camera or computer is used. And without downloading software.

The site officially launched in December, with financial backing from Sequoia Capital, the venture-capital firm that also backed Google. Since then, Hurley and Chen have been on the "Today" show, ABC's "Nightline," and CNN and CNBC.

Surprising evolution

Chen, 27, who is YouTube's chief technology officer, still seems shocked by how the Web site has evolved from the days when he put up videos of his cats to give people an idea of what they can do with YouTube. "It's almost like a challenge now among users to produce more entertaining content," said Chen.

The co-founders say they don't want to become the new TV or supplant the Hollywood machinery. They plan to make money from advertising on the site as well as cross-promotional arrangements with movie studios, record companies and others.

This new world of entertainment has already created powerful players. At YouTube, that's Kevin Donahue, vice president of programming. Besides meeting with entertainment companies about how they can use YouTube, he is also the person who picks videos featured on YouTube's home page. He can turn an obscure video clip into an overnight sensation.

Recently, Donahue chose a video by a Stanford University freshman who filmed President Bush's April visit to Stanford, and shot part of it while sitting in a tree. Since then, the video has received more than 70,000 viewers and 2,100 comments.

"Anyone can be a reporter and share something happening in their life," said Craig, 18, who didn't want his last name used for this story.

It's unclear whether YouTube will retain its populist identity or become a big commercial company with scant room for the little guy. For now, YouTube revels in giving a stage to legions of amateur videographers. Said Hurley: "We are enjoying having a chance to experience things through other people's eyes."