YouTube at 5: What’s it to you?

You probably watch it more than you did (15 mins/day according to LA Times.)

You notice there are more ads, both before videos, and scattered around the page (yet they still haven’t figured out how to really make a buck according to the NYT).

Your favorite video has a better chance of getting pulled due to copyright infringement (thank god for YouTomb!)

You find there is more professional and commercial content made just for YouTube.

You’ll notice there are more and more people made videos (24 hours a minute), although this fare (unlike commercial content) stays more or less static—highlighting the common ideas, talents, jokes, pranks, and foibles of regular people recorded directly and badly to consumer quality devices (i.e. cat videos)—but is just as hard to find them (again) as it’s always been (where’s that bloody archivist!)

You see that the nature of expertise loosens and consolidates. It’s still the Lady Professor who gets interviewed, but now that’s here and there. I speak, they record and air, my boyfriend rips, emails it to me, and I put it on YouTube:

Make sure to go to another YouTube expert’s take (Dr. Strangelove‘s) take on Five, with lots of facts, and YouTube’s anniversary video, too.