The Debates on YouTube

Article contributed by
guest blogger Jen Williams; media
consultant and marketing professional.

If there’s ever been a time to stop using the term “new media,” it’s today. When YouTube becomes a format for presidential debates, one can hardly continue to distinguish the Internet from mainstream media.

Long a tool for spreading political propaganda, garnishing financial support for candidates and “getting out the vote,” the Internet has now been elevated to the status of representing democratic government in its truest form. By giving not only a voice, but also a face, to the voting public, it’s allowed them direct access to candidates in an unprecedented way.

I’ll agree with all the news pundits in their assessment that the format of Tuesday’s debate on CNN was really all that was new about it. The candidates themselves didn’t say much that was unexpected or different from anything they’ve been saying recently. Whether they’re simply attempting to establish consistency or they intentionally avoided anything earth-shattering, it was probably a wise move. The format itself is what made Tuesday’s debate historical, and anything that was said will be overshadowed by that fact alone.

The Republicans might benefit, therefore, for getting their shot at the same format second, because the novelty will have worn off a bit and people might actually pay more attention to what they say, as opposed to how the questions are delivered. It will be interesting to see if they, like their Democratic counterparts, receive questions from rock-singing constituents and snowmen.

Regardless, while those of us who work in media might have known that the terms “mainstream” and “new” media became archaic long ago, the rest of the world can no longer deny it.

 

20 Million Visitors

Digg and Facebook hit an incredible 20 million visitors this last month. Some industry insiders believe that this will open them up for a buyout. Just days after Jay Meattle wrote on his blog about YouTube crossing the 20 million mark, Google came in and bought it for $1.65B in Google stock.

Just for comparison sake, according to Jay's blog MySpace has over 75 billion page views per month and over 67 million in monthly unique visitors. I guess that gives us all something to shoot for.

These sites and many other social media type sites continue to give us trend indications and how to market proactively in the new mass media. I am going to make a prediction right now. I think in the next 10 years there will be a significant number of homes that no longer have cable or satellite. There will be large amounts of programs available on the Internet and consumers will be subscribing to some kind of syndication service for their in-home entertainment. After all, who would have thought that NetFlix would have taken the country by storm and contributed to the decline of so many traditional movie rental companies.


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Do You YouTube?

Well apparently someone is. Jason Miller just reported on WebProNews that "YouTube Comprises 10% of all Internet traffic."

Social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other similar sites are getting more and more traffic every day. As Generation Y moves up in years, they are continually turning to the Internet for entertainment. The transition from simple web browsing to viewing streaming media will continue.

I agree that this trend will continue and lead the way for new applications, transforming the way we use the Internet.

According to Jason Miller, this recent YouTube traffic trend has surpassed, the once leading, P2P traffic in bandwidth consumption.