The Future of YouTube

Remember way back in October of 2006 Google purchased YouTube for a staggering $1.65 billion. Many people wondered why so much money for a site that just shows videos of people doing silly stunts and total randomness.

Well fast forward a few years and it looks like Google made a pretty savvy purchase, regardless of the amount of zero’s it took on one of those oversized checks it handed over. The big question then was could they actually make any money on this investment. Well that answer seems to be clearer as people and advertisers continue to trend towards video.

Now the question is, what is YouTube going to do to stay ahead of the curve? There is certainly no shortage of competition now. http://www.wired.com/2015/05/youtube-future/?mbid=social_twitter dives into things deeper to see where the yellow brick road is heading.

They state the big picture goal is to have an algorithm so sophisticated it knows what, and when to show you videos before you even ask/search for them. Geez, the future is rapidly becoming reality.

For years YouTube has obsessed about picture quality, constantly upgrading, and even going ahead of the market to just to avoid constantly playing catch up. It appears we’re on the cusp of 360- degree videos and livestreaming of video games.

Though most of us in US take it for granted, it may be surprising that 80% of views come from other parts of the world. Bandwidth and network reliability they present some of the greatest challenges ahead for You Tube. But have no fear, they’re already working on ways to seamlessly go from areas with great coverage to areas that feel like internet speeds of a decade ago.

One can only imagine what will happen once they start to bring in the truck loads of TV advertising dollars. It’s only a matter of time as content creators become more popular, and more specific. Anyone think that PewDiePie, and his 36 million+ viewers wouldn’t fetch prime time advertising rates…time will tell, but it’s good to have an office in San Bruno, CA right now.