Over at NewTeeVee, there’s an interesting post about how YouTube did it. How Chad Hurley and Steve Chen made millions billions and became a mega-success with Internet video. I mean, didn’t everyone have that same idea?

Apparently Hurley spoke at an event in Silicon Valley last week and NewTeeVee recorded the entire thing on video. (Ironically, they couldn’t post the video on YouTube because it was too long, so it’s being hosted on Blip.tv.)

When Hurley and Chen made the rounds among VCs, they didn’t use PowerPoint slides. (How’s that for a breath of fresh air.) Their pitch consisted of actual product and statistics. You’d think the pitch would be very straightforward:

1. User-generated content is growing.
2. Videos are growing in popularity and are easier to use than ever.
3. Allow people to post their user generated videos
4. Mix it with social media.

Add a clever name and marketing and … Bam!

So why did YouTube succeed? I believe they had the same idea everyone had, but the main difference was in execution. YouTube made it easier than any one else and made sharing videos fun.

Another big issue, according to Hurley, was the self-policing nature of YouTube. Says NewTeeVee:

One of first companies to automate DMCA — the press misses this, according to Hurley — one of various examples of solutions YouTube has built that set examples for its industry. “What people miss is we built a true community around video. These hundreds of competitors are dealing with the same problems but they’re not having the same growth.”

Yet another reason YouTube went big was that it became popular with the younger generation. If kids are using it often and sharing stuff with their friends (think MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter), then it’s going to be big.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Nielsen Company released results on April’s Internet video consumption, and found that kids aged 2 to 11 view more videos than adults (51 streams per viewer vs. 44). Teens, however, were the most active Internet video consumers. They viewed 74 streams per viewer for an average of 132 minutes per viewer.

Younger kids consume big brands like Disney, Barbie and Nick Jr., while teens focus on music videos and movie sites like Buzznet, Bebo and Atlantic Records.

Since kids having been growing up with the Internet and online video, they are more accustomed to seek out content they want at home and are heavy users.

Overall, Nielsen’s monthly VideoCensus report for April 2008 found that YouTube was number one yet again with 73.5 million unique viewers and 4 billion total streams. All metrics that Nielsen is reporting have gone up.

• Unique viewers have gone up 3.7% from March 2008 to 120 million people.

• Total streams are up 9.3% at 7 billion.

• Streams per viewer are up 5.3% at 64 streams.

• Time per viewer is up 4.0% at 143 minutes.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Isn’t it ironic? A company puts out a press release with the results of a survey showing that over half of respondents are not familiar with the term IPTV. Yet they themselves don’t know what the term IPTV means.

The survey said that more than half of respondents didn’t know what IPTV meant, yet 92% have watched YouTube.

For the record: YouTube is not IPTV. IPTV means broadcast TV delivered over a managed network (or walled garden) using Internet protocols (IP). Thus the term IPTV. YouTube is Internet video. That’s because it’s delivered over the public Internet. Internet video is just a “best effort” delivery since it’s not managed.

But really, it’s not the fault of the company. The term IPTV is often mis-understood by lots of people. I would have thought, however, that a company doing a survey on Internet video would understand the difference.

Another way to distinguish IPTV from Internet video: IPTV is about delivering linear broadcast TV. The survey talked about Internet user-generated content and YouTube. It’s just not the same, and one way to keep the two sides different is not to mix up the terms.

The company that did the survey, WebsEdge, is a content creator that’s in the business of putting videos on the Internet. However, since they barely understand the difference between IPTV and Internet video, how can their customers? Or a regular consumer?

I had a call with Stephen Horn, the CEO of WebsEdge where he admitted that they may have mixed up the terms. But he held fast to the results of the survey and didn’t think he got anything wrong.

I think the press release and the survey are invalid and don’t make any sense.

It just makes me wonder how companies can put out press releases like this that claim any kind of validity.

I even am beginning to wonder about how the survey was conducted. Did they use scientific methods? The press release simply says:

“The survey, conducted in late 2007 in New York City, asked 225 residents about their attitudes and knowledge of IPTV.”

At the end of the press release it states:

“The survey was conducted in midtown Manhattan, New York.”

What kind of questions did they ask? When I asked Stephen about how the survey was conducted I got a vague answer that they’d get back to me. It’s been a few days, and I still haven’t heard anything about how it was conducted. Did they simply walk up to people in the streets? Who knows.

It doesn’t really matter, really. Yet another reason not to take this “survey” seriously.

Bonus: If you feel like reading it, you can see the PDF of the full press release here.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Looks like video site Revver is going up for sale at a bargain price: somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000.

CNet is reporting that Revver has cut staff and is looking to sell despite raising about $12.7 in financing. I bet investors aren’t happy about that. The buyer would also have to take on about $1 million in debt as well, say sources.

Revver was pretty well-known for trying to pay video producers, unlike YouTube. But somehow the company has ended up on hard times. Is this bad news for all YouTube wannabees? I don’t think so. I remember reading that there were at least a hundred companies/sites that were trying to emulate YouTube. But not everyone can make it. I’m betting someone will come along and buy up Revver.

It’s a bargain.

Technorati Tags: Revver, Cnet, YouTube

Popularity: 12% [?]

According to comScore, Google’s video sites grew 31 percent in November 2007 from the previous month. That makes Google’s sites including YouTube and Google Video the number one video site on the Internet with almost 3 billion videos viewed (31.3 percent share of all videos viewed).

Overall, U.S. Internet users viewed nearly 9.5 billion online videos in November. In fact 75% of Americans viewed online video in November.

Other fun facts:

• Over 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched a video online averaging 3.25 hours of video per person during the month.
• Viewers watched an average of 3.25 hours (195 minutes) of online videos. That’s a 29% gain from the 2.52 hours (151 minutes) watched in January 2007.
• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average online video viewer consumed 69 videos.

Bonus: See ComScore’s press release with more figures and the list of the top 10 video properties.

Technorati Tags: comScore, Google, YouTube, streaming, research, Google video

Popularity: 36% [?]