Will YouTubers Prefer Russell Crowe to a Toilet-Trained Cat?
In case you were sitting around wondering what the future is for the Webisode, you have to look no further than the front page of The New York Times' business section, which reports today that the William Morris Agency is about to ink a deal with YouTube to have its talent produce films for the service. In short, there's going to be more of them.
The story doesn't go into the specifics of how said video will be monetized, except to mention that professionally-produced videos might garner a larger audience. Presumably, large audiences will lead to large revenues. It's true that advertisers will probably be much more willing to put their content next to videos from name productions starring the likes of Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, but as good as those actors are, I wonder if what this deal actually will do is further prove that the same sort of commoditization is coming to video content that has existed for the last few years in regards to text content. Will those larger audiences necessarily show up?
If the online video market becomes as fragmented as online text media has become -- with any number of professional journalists, bloggers and tweeters entering the scrum -- who makes enough money in this business to make it viable? And are the people who win the race necessarily the same people who've dominated traditional media? Look no further than Matt Drudge to see if the world was waiting for print journalists to shift to online. In fact, we're already seeing that it doesn't take an Oscar-winning director, nor well-known actors, to steal eyeballs away from professional content. Of course, YouTube is the best example of that, stuffed as it is with weirdly popular videos showing "a time lapse of a baby playing with his toys" or "Kung Fu Film Shot on a Cell Phone." You mean now I can watch videos on YouTube that were produced by William Morris? Remind me again when I'm finished watching this hilarious video of a cat going to the bathroom in a toilet.