• VentureBeat et al., Thursday, June 17, 2010 1:34 PM

With the launch of YouTube's web-based video editor, are we about to witness a hyper acceleration in consumer generated media? Perhaps, but we're not making any promises.

"The editor is actually the second of its kind for YouTube," notes VentureBeat. "In 2007 it launched the Adobe Premiere Express-powered YouTube Remixer, which offered the same basic features."

The result? "The Remixer died a quiet death less than a year after it was put online," Venture Beat writes. That said, "YouTube's new editor is entirely JavaScript-based, which should make it less of a resource hog than the Remixer."

Part of a broader push to empower ever more content creators, YouTube's video editor will eventually include transitions, effects, title screens, and audio layers, its lead engineer Rushabh Doshi and product manager Josh Siegel tells TechCrunch.

"It's going to be a huge deal for anyone who uploads to YouTube on a semi-regular basis," TechCrunch writes regarding the video editor.

Likewise, "We expect that this is an early indication of future plans to bring more robust editing tools to YouTube -- something that could really enhance the service," writes Mashable.

Meanwhile, Fortune asks of YouTube's cloud-based editor: "Is this Android's iMovie?" "One of the major new features of Apple's upcoming iPhone 4 is the ability to edit movies on the phone in an app called iMovie," writes Fortune. "In Apple's version, the editing work is done locally on the phone and then the final work is sent out via email or uploaded to a service like MobileMe, Facebook or YouTube."

"In the YouTube Editor model, the editing is done in the cloud," Fortune adds. "Perfect for smartphones."

"Is the YouTube editor a threat to Apple's iMovie?" asks Fast Company. "Not yet, but given the declining quality of iMovie, it might not take Google very long to catch up."

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