YouTube.

That about sums it up, hey?

Right after Google bought YouTube, they tried to find a way to monetize it effectively. They failed. They failed so many times, that they admitted that they didn’t know how to monetize it. People don’t visit YouTube to watch sponsored clips, purchase advertised goods or click on AdSense. People visit YouTube to watch videos, dangit.

Of course, like any major company who’s head’s so far in orbit that they can’t see the forest for the planet, they’ve decided that the thing in their best interest is to start restricting who can watch what video.

Started out with simple georestrictions, for instance. If you’re from this given country (say, South Africa), there’s about two thirds of the best content on YouTube that’s immediately blocked for you. People tried finding ways around that, but I’m not sure it worked out so well.

Then they were forced to hand over their activity logs, which, in their defense, would be completely anonymized. Well, ouch. I’d think that anyone with half a braincell would figure out that the “Views” counter below every video is a great indication of how many times it was watched. The “Date Posted” will give you views per day (if you can divide, naturally), and a simple search from the front page will locate any keyword you feed it. We’re talking about Google for crying out loud.

And it hasn’t been long, and there’s a whole new error message on YouTube. Now, this one’s interesting.

Companies are now allowed to claim copyrights on videos posted by members of the public.

Oh boy, this is gonna get ugly.

See, the issue here is that YouTube video commentators are total dickwads morons. Actually, they’re more likely to be hormonal 14-year olds trying to see what they can get away with online without mommy and daddy looking over their shoulder. I got that one from somewhere else, if you’re the guy, let me know.

Problem becomes issue at the point where a perfectly innocent - say - Mac vs. PC video’s comment field suddenly becomes a flaming ground, and people are saying all kinds of kak about the other brand. Might even be true kak, too, but it’s harmful to a company’s image, so the most appropriate course of action is, of course, to ban the video altogether. +1 to free speech. EFF’ll have a field day month year.

Nevermind the fact that most of the videos feature major brands or trademarks in some way, and not all of them are very company-brand-conscientious. Like ol’ Max Headroom vs. Pepsi. Pepsi won’t much like the fact that people say Coke is better, and since they own the brand ripped off in the video…

You can see where this is going. Corporate uglyness. We’re gonna be left with a handful of crappy cellphone-shot videos of kids doing weird kak, and a lot of people whining into their webcams about how unfair life is, or about how much money you can make with their system. There’s no patent on being an ass donkey.

Oh, and of course, the corporate-sanctioned videos, which’ll no doubt turn YouTube into yet another massive party-line advertising channel. And they’ll get paid for it, too. Hey! That’s how to monetize YouTube! Rape it!

Not that I’m the sort that’ll easily post videos online, but I do get annoyed when people refer me to videos I cannot watch. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person that feels this way. Since Google’s not about to listen to the people that stream revenue into their company, I figure the best thing to do is offer potentially workable alternatives:

• Zoopy.com - because they’re South African, and South Africans rock, South Africa notwithstanding.
• Vimeo.com - They do Hi-def, a decent service
• VideoEgg.com - They’ve got a video advertising network.
• TheWebsiteIsDown.com - I just had to :)
• Revver.com - A “video sharing network”, does the categories thing.
• Metacafe.com - Focuses on sharing and exploring more than simply watching videos.
• Blip.tv - Mostly v(ideo b)logging oriented.
• Zaplive.tv <– Free online TV streaming thingy. Probably handy for events. WildEarth uses it.

And maybe a webcam to get you started :)