Need to find a video online? How about the classic Keyboard Cat video and its April Fool’s Day equivalent Flugelhorn Feline (as seen to the right)? Or maybe you want to watch Kirstie Alley falling down in Dancing With the Stars repeatedly? Where do you go? YouTube, of course — and thanks to its innate social format, other people know that too.
It seems as if YouTube has been entertaining the savvy, comedy-starved masses for far more than the six years it’s been in existence, and only five of those years have been under Google ownership. During its relatively short life-cycle, the Internet has seen a golden age of rich video-based media, spawning many clones and alternatives along the way. These clones, of course, only help to further define the success story that is YouTube, where anyone can become a video producer and even become an online celebrity (mad props to you, little boy who had his finger bitten by the vicious baby Charlie). All of that is great and all, but where’s the innovation? Where can YouTube possibly go to advance its brand and online video? How about refocusing its content into channels and offering live, streaming video feeds? Yeah, that’s pretty huge.
