YouTube Is a Blog?

I logged on to Technorati today and was startled to see Boing Boing knocked from the top blog spot in their Top 100 rankings... by YouTube.

Since when is YouTube a blog?

Granted, YouTube users control whatever content they choose to upload to their personal pages, so I suppose you could technically consider them blogs... but by that rationale, every personally-owned and operated webpage is a blog, no?

Frank Gruber seems to think this is a positive move for Technorati, in that it'll bolster their growth. I'm not so sure. I think it broadens the playing field to an alarming degree, and forces people who are writing legitimate content to contend with people uploading home movies of their dad for the same pairs of eyeballs. Not that legitimate bloggers aren't already competing with LiveJournal users and people writing about why Debbie made them cry, but still; let's not add fuel to the fire with videos too and make finding specialized content even more difficult.

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So what does all this have to do with producing a web series? Well, I've been thinking: YouTube is obviously the MySpace version of an eventual web channel; it's simple, easy to use, hard to search and completely democratic, which tends to fly in the face of established big media wisdom. When web channels eventually become the norm -- and I fully expect YouTube to be monetized into the next business model shortly -- we'll see tiered varieties of content aggregation, quality and interactivity. People who want to upload, edit and interact will be shepherded toward something probably owned by AOL or Yahoo, while people who just want to watch a vintage episode of Matlock will be drawn toward Google Video. [Loose predictions, but you must see where I'm coming from.]

Where does that leave video content producers?

Obviously, producing a show that stands alone will still be completely viable -- HomestarRunner have been doing it profitably for years now -- and probably even moreso than it is now. YouTube, etc., can always be used as viral marketing platforms to direct viewers to a show's homebase, whether it's Fox.com or my own personal site. But the bigger corporately-funded channels will always have a leg up on marketing and distribution, and the ability to package like-minded shows together in a way that the independent producers won't.

Take Tiki Bar TV, for example. They manage to produce a show every two weeks, on average. Jeff Macpherson, aka Dr. Tiki, has said in an interview that he wants to raise the money to produce a variety of web series. He's in a fascinating position to do so; as one of the most popular podcasts on the planet, Tiki Bar TV pulls down more eyeballs per month than anyone except Rocketboom or possibly Ask a Ninja. He has genre-wide name recognition, and can parlay that into the clout necessary to spawn a handful of new series via a Tiki Bar-centric channel if he so chooses.

But why not sell Tiki Bar TV to the highest bidder? Sure, he'd lose his most marketable asset -- a veritable brand name, as the field emerges -- but the would the money he gains from the sale AND the likely ancillaries (tell me YouTube can't afford to produce more Tiki Bar T-shirts in 6 months than Macpherson can in five years) shake out better for his own channel plans in the long run?

It's a dicey proposition. If the indies give in and sell out to the corporations in order to fund their own production companies, we could very easily see the playing field of Web TV split between the big money and the new money, with the originators of the biggest podcasts able to fund their next ideas or potentially indenture themselves to the powers-that-be. But if they hold out and each forms its own mini-empire, or partners individually with other indiecasts, the collective buzz around such a braintrust could force the corporations to scramble for new talent (and likely overpay in the process).

Emerging business model? Your time is nigh.