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RSSEveryone knows YouTube and how big it is -- but even so, some of the statistics Berg threw out were mind-boggling. The site now contains hundreds of millions of videos, with an average of 8 hours of content being uploaded every minute. Every minute! And what is more, that content comes from only 2% of the site's user base. These "creators" are at the heart of YouTube's success and sit at the top of the user eco-system that includes "collectors," who generate playlists for every topic under the sun, "critics," who add their often irreverent and off-color comments to the content, and then finally the "consumers," the silent majority who just watch the videos that have been posted.
Berg was keen to point out that YouTube is a platform, not a media company. He stated that YouTube makes no decisions over what is shown and said that it simply provides the means for people to express themselves. Of course, that has led to many advertisers expressing concern over placing their advertising in such an environment. It is all too easy for a brand's ad to end up in close proximity to content deemed undesirable to the brand's positioning.
In the course of the presentation, however, Berg addressed this issue directly by putting up an iconic image from the Vietnam War: Nick Ut's photo, "Napalm Strike," which shows terrified villagers fleeing from a napalm strike on the village of Trang Bang, Vietnam, in June 8, 1972. Berg asked why advertisers seem happy to advertise in newspapers and magazines that carry disturbing images like that one, and yet they shy away from doing so with video content. Is it really worse to have Tiffany's and Armani ads appear next to pictures of bomb blast victims in Newsweek than to have videos created for Coca-Cola and McDonald's show up next to Paris Hilton's sleaziest on YouTube?
On reflection, the question seems justified. Is it simply that we are more comfortable with the juxtaposition of such images in static media because those forms of communication have been around so much longer? Or is it an excuse that advertisers use to avoid having to create content that will work in the free-for-all environment of YouTube?
Up to now I had accepted that concern at face value. Berg's presentation certainly gave me reason to question that assumption.
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However, I have to agree it seems that sometimes there is more leniency for print ads than for video. I've seen some troubling pictures lined up next to some rather high end advertisers. Is it a problem? I don't think so...but it is if this doesn't apply to video as well.
The interesting thing is, however, that video has sound and motion - so it is much more real. It implies life, mimics life. A picture, without sound and motion, is troubling but for some reason less so.
I watch how my own children have reacted to things like this - it is hard for me to limit their exposure to troubling pictures in newspapers and magazines. I notice they are disturbed by these images, but process them very easily. However, when they glimpse similar images on video, they are much more shocked and it requires more work on my part to explain the images they've seen. It seems more real to them.
I believe this kind of thing carries over into adulthood. Running the risk of being overly psychoanalytical, video is much more lifelike, thus it generates a different response. Still images of Johnny Knoxville injuring himself during a stunt don't tend to encourage kids to pull the stunt, whereas seeing the whole stunt and the ultimate injury tends to have people think "oh that was funny, I should try that".
Assumptions are made on the basis of the whole content, not the moment in time.
The difference is control.
Advertisers are accostomed to it: when the Napalm photo was published (I was 16 at the time) the magazine had complete control over the content, and the advertiser had complete control over placement, at least as far as deciding which publication and where its ads would appear. And yes, some advertisers did refuse to advertise in some publications.
Control over the publication is absent on YouTube; Control over placement is crumbling as well as copied commercials increasingly show up in places the advertiser never planned. That (unplanned) impression...is still an impression.
Going further, to say that "mass adoption will never happen (without control) is ludicrous. As Milennial consumers continue to shift from TV and toward YouTube...and Milennial *media planners and CMOs* are increasingy make the placement decisions...mass adoption will most certainly happen. Get used to seeing Chevrolet, Johnson & Johnson, and Wal-Mart right next to Brittany and Eminem....even if the latter won't stock the CDs.
Publishers have house rules. For example, they will moe ads that could mistakenly be perceived as making light of a tragedy or taking advantage of a situation. Ads that make it appear that a story could have been influenced by an ad spend are often moved to another page.
The difference is that the publisher completely controls the layout and therefore can choose to avoid those "d'oh!" moments. As you pointed out it's 8 hours of uploads every minute. No one can "guarantee" there won't be a nasty surprise on YouTube.
There is a big difference between a piece of photojournalism and the impression it leaves vs. a video a underage college kids getting smashed.
It has been conventional wisdom by media buyers that advertisers buy news because it's trusted - and that trust then would have, to use a modern term, have a "halo" effect on their brand and/or advertisement.
Until Youtube pre-screens all of the video it puts advertising on, you will not see mass adoption. What Youtube could do is mark the pre-screened videos as ad-safe and put ads on them, and then others that are not screened, not. But there is a legal reason they do not do that and don't do screening in general, except to respond to DMCA takedown notices.
This reason is that they would lose their "safe harbor" about copyrighted material being uploaded, and therefore be required to screen everything before it's put on the website as according to the law it's an all-or-nothing game.
If they pre-screened everything, they would lose traction because uploading users wouldn't have the instant satisfaction of something being up there as well as they would be viewed as a "sellout" by their core users.
Buying on other forms of media that are more conversational - like podcasting, blogs, and the like - have much more potential currently than Youtube.