save to del.icio.us Esm e Denter, an unknown Dutch singer who parlayed her rise to fame on YouTube into a recent deal with Justin Timberlake's new record label, was the star of one of the featured clips at an event staged in Paris on June 19 to kick off new international versions of Google's (GOOG) popular video-sharing site.
Announcing new customized versions of the site in the Netherlands, Poland, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, England, Japan, and Brazil, YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen highlighted the iconic story of Denter, who uploaded more than 50 video clips of herself and amassed over 21 million views before winning her record deal. YouTube already gets more than half its traffic from outside the U.S.
Now, with its nine new global sites, which feature local-language interfaces and lists of the most popular videos in each country, the Google unit is aiming to entrench its position around the world. This is just the beginning, Chen says. If we had the resources, we would be launching in 140 countries.
At stake is far more than entertaining additional people with user-generated videos. Since it was acquired last year by Google for $1.6 billion, YouTube has moved rapidly to seal deals with established broadcasters that increasingly recognize the Internet as a vital distribution channel.
In preparation for the June 19 announcement, the company signed up European partners including the BBC, France 24, France T l visions, Spain's Antena 3 and Cuatro TV, and Portugal's RTP. Though many such broadcasters now post mainly promotional material on YouTube, such as clips of upcoming shows, some are starting to experiment with advertising-supported programming. These deals will get more and more commercial as time goes on, says Patrick Walker, head of video partnerships for Google in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
YouTube on Every Screen The long-term goal isn't just to add richer, more professional fare but also to drive YouTube beyond PC screens and onto other video displays: mobile phones, handheld players, and most important, the living room TV. That's one reason Google recently inked a deal with Apple (AAPL) to put YouTube videos on the company's new Apple TV product. The big thing for us in 2007 is accessibility the goal is to put YouTube on every screen, says Chen.
There's reason to believe such a transition could be just around the corner. The rise of user-generated video sites already has pushed some traditional content owners off the list of the world's top 20 Web sites, according to Alexa Web Search. And a new survey conducted by IBM Global Business Services (IBM) and Germany's Zem Bonn University found that German youth ages 14 to 19 would be willing to substitute up to a quarter of their current TV viewing with amateur videos if the clips were easily accessible on TV.
Of course, Google is still trying to figure out how to make money from YouTube, whose popularity far outstrips its revenue generation. According to market researcher In-Stat, advertising of all kinds on video-sharing networks will amount to just $337 million worldwide this year a small fraction of the $37.8 billion TV advertising business in the U.
S. Even by 2011, In-Stat says, the figure will have risen to just $1.6 billion.
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