Chad Hurley and Loic Le Meur just talked about the past and future of YouTube at LeWeb. According to Hurley, YouTube‘s users now upload over 24 hours of content per minute. Hurley refused to talk about YouTube’s revenue, though he did mention that revenue at YouTube is up, and the cost of operating the site are down. Hurley acknowledged that the mobile site is currently growing faster than the regular website. YouTube also plans to provide more live programming on the site with the help of its partners.
The ratio between creators and viewers on YouTube is very heavily skewed towards viewers. The number of creators doesn’t make up more than just a few percent of all of YouTube’s users.
Challenges: Better Search and Discoverability
According to Hurley, one of the biggest challenges for YouTube is to make videos more discoverable. YouTube needs to develop a better search experience, but the team is also thinking about recommendation technologies and adding more social networking features. Currently YouTube leverages social services like Twitter and Facebook, but isn’t much of a social service itself. However, while Hurley hopes that YouTube will be the place where users consume videos, but he isn’t necessarily interested in turning YouTube into a full-blown social destination.
Moderator Loic Le Meur asked Hurley how YouTube manages to filter content on the site, and how the team decides what to take down. Hurley mostly sidestepped this question, though he did mention YouTube’s technology for finding copyrighted material.
Handful of Users Make more than $1 Million per Year
Hurley noted that a handful of users on the site make more than $1 million per year from their videos on YouTube. The company wants to create more opportunities for publishers on the service, though Hurley didn’t go into details.
YouTube in the Living Room
Asked about YouTube on television and in the living room, Hurley said that his vision is basically a “box, an Internet connection and pizza.” He did note, though, that all television will move towards an on-demand model.
Image credit: @scobleizer and thanks to DutchCowGirlsfor letting us use the visualization of Hurley’s argument.
