[Air-L] Ten years ago: Google buys YouTube

[Rainer Hillrichs]

Dear all,

who remembers the video of "Chad and Steve" announcing their company had
been "acquired by Google"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVxQ_3Ejkg.
That was ten years ago today!

Among parts of the users of the company and the press this event is seen as
the sellout of an initially non-commercial initiative to media capitalism.
However, statements from the founders made elsewhere leave little doubt
that YouTube was initially designed as a "product" that would eventually be
"profitable" through advertisement (Karim 2006).

In the Coda "YouTube and YouTube Culture Today" of my e-book *Poetics of
Early YouTube: Production, Performance, Success* (Bonn: ULB, 2016) I point
out where I see continuities and where breaks with the early period of the
platform. In particular, YouTube's own increasing involvement in video
production during the past couple of years seems to be a change - a change
that moves the company away from the 'platform' model towards traditional
vertically-integrated models of media production, distribution, and
exhibition. Link: http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2016/4407/4407.pdf

Best,
Rainer

-- 
Dr. Rainer Hillrichs
Universität Mannheim
https://uni-mannheim.academia.edu/RainerHillrichs