BY GLAUCO BENIGNI According to newspaper reports, YouTube –– the world’s largest online video community with content made by professionals and amateurs alike from every corner of the planet –– has reached up to 350 million members. The user-generated content site began three years ago as a social network that provided Web-surfers with a new service: the opportunity to upload, watch and share video clips on a seemingly boundless database. Then, on October 9, 2006, Google Inc. announced it would acquire YouTube for $165 billion in a stockfor-stock transaction. The acquisition was the beginning of yet another era for YouTube. From that point on, the so-called “traditional media paradigm” changed from a threat to a reality and the future of video clip culture began. The “culture,” or rather, “lifestyle,” of the new “X,” “Y” and “Z” generations could be easily shaped by 100,000 videos uploaded daily and watched anytime, anywhere. And those 100,000 videos, in a way, represent the “new world order” for viewers and television professionals alike. That’s why I chose to document the story of this phenomenon in a book called: YouTube: La Storia (The History) . The book, in Italian, is published by RaiEri, a division of state broadcaster RAI. YouTube is not just a technical tool. It is also the most mature example of globalization –– a phenomenon with financial, social, aesthetic, cultural, political and religious repercussions worldwide. Thanks to user-generated content, YouTube is modifying traditional massmedia outlets, and sometimes even replacing them. It is changing advertising practices and generating conflicts between old media and new, digital-era media. It is influencing electoral campaigns even in long-standing democracies, and putting authoritarian regimes into a tizzy. And it is discovering new talents in all areas of human endeavours and rendering — for better or for worse — repressed collective emotions visible. YouTube is also reformatting today’s debates on subjects of great importance, including war and the environment. YouTube has taken the first real global picture of people intent on filming themselves and on showing everything (whether it be profound or insipid) to everybody. It is still unclear whether YouTube is making or will make a profit, or whether it will turn its part of the Web into a new Hollywood. Meanwhile, it is being used extensively, even by Senator Barack V I D E O • A G E OC T O B E R 2 0 0 8 32 S o c i a l N e t w o r k s YouTube: A Shaper Of Professional TV? Glauco Benigni Obama’s camp and by the U.S. Defense Department, which allows the uploading of video clips from war zones. Additionally, the world’s five biggest music labels have all made agreements with YouTube to use their music, and certain amateurish video clips have collected up to 80 million viewers. In the history of mass communications, no one has ever reported a medium’s taking on such relevance in so short a time. Now let’s analyze who watches YouTube. A large number of people do, because its content is amplified by other media agents, especially the traditional press. YouTube’s reach goes far beyond its Internet community and embraces millions of other people who are curious about the world of YouTube. In the beginning, the site served almost solely for personal amusement. But quickly, other kinds of content started to be uploaded and watched, including promotional materials, reruns of TV shows, political messages and more. The topic of amateur uploaders offers some interesting insight. Images are “unstable” due to the cheap video cameras and mobile phones with which the videos are recorded and the shoddy camera work that goes into filming them. But in a way it is also a code: a search for a video language that is “different.” The process can be compared to avant-garde music or what in painting is referred to as abstract art. Are we to really think that, after the YouTube experience, this generation of users will go back to consuming traditional media? Some might, but with a different outlook. And this different outlook is what will shape the future of media. Q&AWITH GLAUCO BENIGNI, AUTHOR OF YOUTUBE: LA STORIA VideoAge International: Tell me about YouTube: La Storia (The History). Glauco Benigni : The book is co-published by Magazzini Salani Editore (the publisher that holds the copyright for the Harry Potterbooks in Italy) and RaiEri, the publishing house of Italian state pubcaster RAI. The book is 256 pages long and is divided into three sections: “YouTube-The International History,” “YouTube-Italy,” and “How to Become Rich and Famous With YouTube.” It retails for 16.80 euro (U.S.$26.18). VAI: Will La Storia be translated into English? GB: The Grandi E Associati, a Milan-based literary agency, is currently marketing the international rights to a number of different interested publishers. Polish publisher Raphael, which is based in Krakow, has already acquired the rights for Poland. The same publisher also holds the Polish rights to my previous book, The Pope’s Guardian Angels , a history of the pope’s bodyguards, which has sold out in both Poland and Germany. Publishers in Japan and Israel have already shown much interest in YouTube : The History. VAI: Is the YouTube phenomenon as prevalent in Italy as it is in the U.S.? GB: Yes, in Italy, YouTube quickly became popular, just like in the U.S. Unfortunately, however, a large number of people began hearing about YouTube only in a negative way, because of reports from local newspapers and TV stations which showcased video clips depicting teenagers fighting or doing other outrageous things. The Italian press now reports almost daily on how YouTube is used and abused by Italians. On the positive side, a number of Italian politicians used YouTube during the last political campaign, and many artists regularly post their work on the site. Also, Italian pubcaster RAI struck a deal with the social network to show thousands of its video clips daily on a branded channel. VAI: What are some of YouTube’s biggest challenges? GB: The YouTube community is floating pretty freely and anonymously on the Web. YouTube can go anywhere and everywhere looking for new opportunities for more visibility and eventually, some financial rewards. What happens will very much depend on the advertising investments made by the bigwigs on Madison Avenue. VAI: Who are YouTube’s main competitors? GB: Some experts say that the site’s main competition comes from [social networking sites] MySpace, Facebook or Dailymotion, but I’d argue that those sites have a different basic concept and are not direct competitors of YouTube. VAI: How will YouTube affect traditional television? GB: Traditional TV will use YouTube as an enormous casting system in order to find new talent. Some “serial uploaders” are providing thousands of short stories that could eventually lead to new TV formats. Many TV broadcasters, including NBC and CBS, are using YouTube to promote their new programming. Other broadcasters are using the site as a way to improve their “interactivity” with audiences. Many YouTubers are using the site as an actual source of news. Further fragmentation of the traditional mass TV audience is the main effect that YouTube will have on television. But only when advertisers eventually begin investing portions of their budgets in YouTube will traditional TV really feel threatened.
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