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Google Reveals YouTube's Long-Term Strategy

Robert-KynclYouTube is betting big on original content. By 2020, 75% of all media channels will be born and transmitted via the Internet, predicted Robert Kyncl, the vice president of content at YouTube, during his Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote Thursday. Online video doesn't mean computers. The content is viewed on tablets and smartphones. And these videos are viewed from platforms other than YouTube.

For anyone giving it a second thought, Google TV now makes sense. In March 2012, Google acquired Next New Networks, a Web video production company supporting professionally produced content. Google's acquisitions and Internet TV strategy also make sense. Kyncl revealed snippits of future shows that we can expect to see on the video site.

It turns out that more than 100,000 years worth of YouTube videos are viewed on Facebook, yearly. There are 350 million YouTube videos shared on Twitter, yearly. The Web has become a vehicle for distribution. That's why Verizon Digital Media Services spent $370 million to build two facilities and an automation platform to distribute video on demand (VOD) and live streaming content to mobile devices.

Within a few years online video will be responsible for 90% of all online traffic, Kyncl said. Not just mobile devices, but across smart TV. About 500 million smart TVs will ship by 2015, and about 700 million mobile devices activated by the end of this year. There are more Android activations daily than babies born on Earth, he said.

By 2015, U.S. advertisers will spend $213.6 million on ads that support mobile video content, up from $37.5 million in 2010, estimates eMarketer. Ad-supported mobile content revenue will exceed $1 billion by 2015, with the fastest growth coming from ad-supported mobile video, the research firm said.

YouTube recognizes the growth in online video so much that the company will gamble $100 million to see professional productions like Young Hollywood make it big; the YouTube-only programming premieres Monday. 

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