• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, June 8, 2011

Baljeet Singh, Sr. product manager at YouTube talked about the rather inconceivably larger reach YouTube has, how marketers and brands have taken advantage of the space, "blurring the lines between advertising and content."

Some stats he shared: 5.1 billion online video views in just the U.S. in the month of April, representing 16 video views per American on average across the U.S. in the month of April. Globally, he said, the channel has gotten 3 billion views per day globally. "In terms of content creation, we are looking at 48 hours of content uploaded per minute on youtube." That, he said, is a 25% increase versus last year.

Some examples of how an initially narrow reach can become viral, and thus ubiquitous: "It gets better," Dan Savage's video upload aimed at helping teens and kids struggling with identity and sexuality. Singh said initially it got a relatively small reach, four weeks later thousands joined, including Barack Obama, and beyond that random folks created their own support messages, their own experiences with bullying.

From there, major sports teams SF giants who supported it and got behind the cause. thousands of videos rallying around it. relaying concept of word of mouth. put their spin on it.