by Victoria Jeffrey

Created on: January 12, 2008

YouTube exploded on the scene only a few years ago and now it seems to be the number one go-to place for video content, professional and amateur. What makes YouTube so much fun for people? Does it have any value besides letting people upload inane videos of themselves?

YouTube's popularity and value is increasing and part of that reason is because of social networking sites and blogs. These two things go hand in hand with the video content that You Tube offers. Movie trailers, TV show trailers, old commercials from childhood, documentaries, personal videos and such can all be found on YouTube and one of the things that makes YouTube valuable asset is because they allow anyone who has a presence on the web or a blog or site either paste these videos on a blog post or embed the code for any video there into the sidebar of a website or blog. You can email videos to friends or upload and share your own.

YouTube gives you freedom to promote content that you like and the freedom to express and promote your own video projects. You can also build playlists of your favorite videos on your own account page and share that playlist with others. You can also build your account page and post a link to this page on your blog so people can see your playlist of videos.

It is also one of the more interesting places on the web. I've found old favorite commercials I saw in childhood, old cartoons no longer in syndication, video responses posted to controversial topics and people responding to each other by posting videos. The Blasphemy Challenge and the Rational Responder's videos and the resulting series of videos between atheists and theists going back and forth over these topics are one of many things that shown YouTube to be a vibrant community. It is also a place where many get much of their entertainment. It could be an added avenue for movie and television studios to promote films and TV. Even now it can help create buzz and excitement over studio projects.

The potential for YouTube's value and usefulness in internet commerce could be great. It could be turned into a paid movie download site, even a site to help launch independent films. YouTube is one part of the phenomenons organized under the term New Media and may do for entertainment today what radio and later, TV, did for entertainment did decades ago: radically transform how people interact, respond and consume it.

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