Lessons learned from YouTube

It’s hard to describe the magnitude of today’s YouTube deal, not in financial terms but as further evidence that traditional television still doesn’t get it. How it is that Apple and now Google have become the destinations and marketplaces for video on the web? They’re the new networks using the same currency — video — as TV has for years. It’s because they’ve not been constrained by old media thinking. The level of naysaying that continued up to the final hour of the Google-YouTube deal proves my point. First it was “who would ever watch stupid clips online?” Then “they’ll never make money” and finally “they’ll get sued out of business.” The networks wrote cease-and-desist letters, then weeks later started posting video on the site. In Apple’s case, it was “who wants to pay to watch TV shows on a PC or a tiny iPod?” Lots of people. It’s not about control, it’s about choice. It’s not about mass, it’s about niche. It’s not about publishing, but facilitating and connecting. It’s not about us, it’s about the user. “The thing that tipped us over was not the great business success of YouTube,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said today. “But in fact the vision of serving their end users.” While traditional media scrambles to protect and incrementally improve its bottom line, companies like YouTube, Google and Apple are pursuing new opportunities focused on the user. And that’s what sets them apart.