See One, Do One, Teach One

Recently a post appeared on the front page of digg suggesting that Fox would purchase YouTube.  Nobody yet knows if this rumor is true or not; however, it should be.  YouTube must combine with a media giant in order to develop the next killer facet of their project — YouTube TV.

In combining with a media network, YouTube could easily convert its content into TV channels.  With tagging and classification, most of the work has been done already.  Just like satellite radio, users would select a TV channel based on the genre they want.  Want to watch a stream of funny video clips? Turn on YouTubeTV Comedy.  Want to watch the most popular videos on YouTube?  Turn on that channel instead.

YouTube will be the first internet media company that can immediately make a large impact on ”old school” media such as television.  Content is king and YouTube has plenty of it. 

However, YouTubeTV will not be funded through traditional content surrounded and interrupted by commercials.  YouTubeTV will have integrated videos that in many ways will be indistinguishable from the normal YouTube content.  YouTube actually does this already, in fact.  Ethical or not, the best performing adsense sites are those that have adsense that appears to blend in with the content.  In the world of DVRs and TIVOs, integrated commercial content will even be more vital.

Imagine it.  You are getting your ADHD fill of YouTube content sitting on your couch.  One short clip after another after another.  Imagine how easy it will be to slide in a video that continues with the channel’s theme but really contains a commercial message…  

You are watching the Sports YouTube channel.  Currently you are in the middle of a 15 minute run of the best YouTube submitted slam dunks.  In this dunk, you see a player 5′6″ guy slam over a 7 foot giant.  Amazing slam!  In the replay now, the camera pauses just a brief second on the logo on the player’s shoe.  YouTubeTV has just fed you a commercial.

Of course, google already has a TV station.  It is a cheap option that cable companies can add to their channel list.  Current TV, however, displays the high end, better-than-amateur, safe content.  YouTubeTV should not be so foolish.  Most people do not watch YouTube to see documentaries on albino, multilingual sock puppet performers in Seattle.  (I think that one has run on current.tv like four times now.)  YouTubeTV will just take the best of the submitted content, strip out the material they can’t get copyright permission, and then will gladly feed the rest to us.  Raw.

We are no longer a TV generation.  We are an internet generation.  Previously we would have used the internet to get a torrent of one of our favorite TV shows.  Soon YouTubeTV will allow us to get our internet fix — our YouTube fix — with a remote control in our hand and a high-def TV across the room.

And what about Fox buying YouTube?  From the company that brought us MySpace and American Idol, Fox might be the perfect schizophrenia media magnet to pull all of this off. 

May God help us all.  (Now where is my remote?)