YouTube Dances a Fine Line

Authored by Scott Goldberg on October 2, 2006 - 5:26pm.

As more hands seem to get involved in YouTube’s popularity on a daily basis – Warner Music Group, Cingular, Good Morning America, The U.S. Government (!) – you can’t help wondering if the young company’s identity is being robbed in the process, and whether or not they’ll pay the price for it with their customers.

[This is the inaugural article for Millennial Modes, a weekly column that covers the trends, attitudes, and tastes of the millennial generation. Millennial Modes is made possible by Cdigix.]

Let's Play Pirates

In some ways I feel for YouTube. I get the impression they’re in for an introduction to a Real World they never dreamed of, and I’m not talking about the farce MTV has been producing for the past 16 years. They remind me of a group of youngsters playing a make-believe game called “Pirates,” only they built a real ship, made genuine costumes, and actually set out to sea. Hell, the boat even sailed admirably, well enough to support other youngsters’ desire to play Pirates too, putting on costumes and paddling out to join them. But then some parents sniffed out the indecency and sensed a party was happening without them, so they got in their fifty foot speed boats and went out to YouTube’s glorious anarchist vessel, boarded without permission, and proceeded to dish out wrist and head slaps by the dozen before dragging the dreamers back to the mainland by their ears.

What Would Dave Do?

The thing about YouTube is that, until recently, I found myself rooting for them. And it’s not that I’ve stopped, but with every new deal they announce, they’re losing my interest. They’re beginning to resemble the Dave Matthews Band and the interview they did with Charlie Rose in September 1999 when, to my disbelief, Dave Matthews declared he was going to abandon the style that made him successful and focus on a more commercially-driven career. Right there, Dave Matthews lost me. I stopped listening to his music. Even today, if it plays on the radio, I turn it off. And if anyone is with me I tell them about the Charlie Rose interview. I saw Dave Matthews play Bonnaroo last summer in Tennessee, and the lawn seating for his stage, the festival’s largest, was less than 1/3 full. Midway through a drab version of “All Along the Watchtower,” a guy across the lawn yelled, louder than Dave’s melancholy voice, “This is depressing!” and everyone laughed. YouTube isn’t there yet, but they’re headed down the path.

And it’s hard to blame them. Can you imagine the daily harassment they must get from lurking corporate lackeys trying to pitch the next “must-do” development? Or how easy it would be to get YouTube’s ears perked on the idea they’ve had a nice ride but without a major change of direction they’re doomed to join the heaps of Internet trash that has preceded them?

On the other hand, here’s something to keep in mind: Dave Matthews remains an active, relatively successful recording artist, which isn’t a bad career by anyone’s standards. And YouTube might be making decisions that, in the end, allow them to continue doing what they do – not a shabby gig either, but at what cost? YouTube represented more than a new entertainment platform when it erupted; it was a cool new entertainment platform.

The New York Times and the No Longer Hip

That said, if you read the New York Times with any regularity, you know how the Arts and Style sections often highlight the current underground scene of which only the “hipsters” are aware. Almost as regularly, and to its credit, The Times hints at the irony of a scene that, having now been published in a major national newspaper, is no longer “underground,” and therefore isn’t hip. The hipsters, in other words, have already moved on to the next thing, and you, the public, will know about it as soon as The Times reporters find out where it’s happening. YouTube had the feeling of a hipster’s play den, and maybe they’re wise to move on to greener pastures, for after all, as the New York Times shows us, how long can you stay hip once the masses are on to you?

And perhaps that’s the thought process behind YouTube’s closed doors: “We’ve had a great run, surpassed any expectations we could’ve dreamed of, now let’s figure out how to make some money off this thing before the walls implode.” But you don’t want to lose your most important customer base in the process. The day YouTube becomes the venue for the online version of “The View” I’ll be out of there faster than a McDonald’s bacon-egg-and-cheese through your digestive track.

Advertising to the Rescue, But Who will Stick Around?

The PR firms have been doing a great job creating the hype that has fueled the rumors of large media companies looking to buy the newbies, the other service always up for grabs being, of course, Facebook. The sums on offer are astonishing: Yahoo buying Facebook for $1 billion?! YouTube looking for $1.5 billion?! That’s interesting to me, because I use YouTube every day, and I’ve never spent a cent. But oh yeah, that’s right, the plan is to advertise. I’m sure that won’t affect the pleasure I currently take in visiting the site in the slightest bit. Not at all. It’ll be seamless. I’ll barely notice.

Sure.

How many people in the age group that got YouTube rolling (18-30) will feel the same when it begins to resemble FoxFaith more than the Internet version of a time machine? And when that happens, is $1.5 billion still the right price? It’s not far from happening, if it hasn’t happened already. Nick Kingsbury, the CEO of Chronicle Solutions, was quoted on September 22 as saying, “Seqouia (YouTube’s main VC investor) needs to get YouTube on the right side of the line so that they can be one of the good guys.” Mr. Kingsbury is referring, in part, to the difficulty advertisers have with participating in a site that looks like it’s run by a group of youngsters playing a make-believe game called “Pirates.” Being one of the good guys was never YouTube’s ambition. They were simply having fun, creating a solution to a problem, that being the ability to watch anything ever recorded, instantaneously, in high quality, right at your computer. And now they’re across the table from Diane Sawyer trying to convince Wall Street they have business savvy.

And maybe they do. Maybe Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are ten steps ahead. Maybe they have real, genuine vision.

Two Ships Passing in the Net

But that’s not the point. YouTube exploded for a reason, and it was a risky one. They floored you every time you found something you’d been dying to see for ages. I loved them for that. I loved that I could download Stacey Ferguson (presently Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas), lighting up the stage with glittering after-school personality on a 1984 copy of Kids Incorporated right after the confusing but visually magnetic video for her solo hit “London Bridge.” That’s the kind of thing you daydream about at 3:30pm on a Monday afternoon conference call and think, “I hope someone figures that one out some day.”

And they did. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen jumped an enormous gap for everyone. They created YouTube. We all put on our costumes and swam out to the ship to play. Now the ship’s tacking, it seems, and I’m wondering if they’re still at the helm. How much longer will the party last? If only the boat were difficult to abandon, if only there weren’t so many other options, $1.5 billion might be worth it...But the Internet is vast. Something better is always just a click away.

Scott Goldberg

Millennial Modes is made possible by Cdigix.

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Comments

Dave

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 6, 2006 - 6:27am.

Dude... dave's the shit.. don't ever try to bring him down.. and whoever said that about watchtower has never heard it.. because thats one of the best versions of a cover song I've ever heard

Dave

Submitted by Scott G (not verified) on October 6, 2006 - 7:57am.

Watchtower is a great song, but Dave makes it about as entertaining as a 7th grade grammer class. It's pure melancholy. And the fan who yelled, "This is depressing!" was absolutely right. It was one of those perfectly timed pieces of humor that had everyone rolling...that kind of reaction only happens when everyone is thinking the same thing, so yeah, Dave butchered a great song.