YouTube视频让你讲故事
How to set a course for a shooting star
Chad Hurley has the drawn face and chalky pallor that have become almost a mark of honour for internet entrepreneurs in their early days. If too little sleep is to blame, it would not be surprising.
YouTube, the online video-sharing site he launched in December with Steve Chen, chief technology officer, has hit the sort of popular culture nerve about which most people in his position only dream. Less than a year after its launch, YouTube has become the first site to turn online video into a mass market business, streaming more than 100m short videos a day to an audience of more than 30m in the US alone.
ADVERTISEMENT
The object of takeover advances from some of the biggest internet companies almost from the moment it was launched, YouTube has recently received a flurry of new bids that could mean it will finally agree to be bought out.
With things moving that fast, who has time to sleep?
What is taking shape in YouTube's cramped offices above Amici's pizza restaurant in San Mateo, a suburban wasteland south of San Francisco, has transfixed the television and music industries.
Depending on whom you listen to, this could become the first big new media company to grow out of the web's Next Big Thing: user-generated video. Alternatively, it could turn out to be the next Napster, an out-of-control network for sharing copyrighted material that draws the legal fire of the established media industry.
Mention of the defunct file-sharing network that opened the gates to mass online piracy draws an instant response from the 29-year-old YouTube chief executive. In an interview late last month, Mr Hurley gave the Napster comparison short shrift. "I think it's not even a close comparison," he said. "Napster was a black market for music."
YouTube, on the other hand, is for teenagers who want to air their angst or show off their talents as home-movie makers. "The more popular users on our site are people who are just telling their stories. It's almost the ultimate form of reality television," he said
That is not how Doug Morris, head of Universal Music Group, put it last month. He attacked YouTube and MySpace, the social networking site, as "copyright in-fringers [that] owe us tens of millions of dollars."
According to this view, YouTube's users are stuffing its servers with copyrighted music videos, clips of TV shows and other material. Even kids lip-synching to their favourite songs in their bedrooms are distributing music without permission.
Mr Hurley has certainly shown none of the hubris that turned Napster and a generation of peer-to-peer networks into mortal enemies of the entertainment industry. He controls his words carefully, always staying "on message" - that YouTube is trying to become a partner of the media giants, and could become a massive new marketplace for entertainment companies to reach their audience.
The YouTube founders have already seen first-hand the sort of internet killing they could look forward to if they play their cards right. They both got their first taste of it at PayPal, the online payments service that was later bought by eBay. (Mr Hurley was the 15th employee and the first de-signer hired by PayPal.)
Like both of those internet companies, he now claims that YouTube is the beneficiary of "network effects" that mean the bigger the site's audience becomes the more success will feed off itself. The exhibitionists who post their home videos on YouTube are drawn by its large audience, and the content then serves to draw even more viewers.
The question now for Mr Hurley and Mr Chen is whether they emulate PayPal in one other respect: by selling out to a larger internet company. Barely two weeks ago, the YouTube chief said his company had not been involved in any acquisition talks and seemed adamant about staying independent. "We're just going to continue to build the business on our own," he said.
YouTube's choice of its venture capital backers - Sequoia Capital, the same firm behind PayPal (as well as one of those behind Google and Yahoo) - reflected that desire not to sell out too early, he said. "That's why we went with Sequoia . . . They're not a VC that builds small companies."
Since he spoke those words, though, YouTube has been on the receiving end of fresh acquisition overtures from Google and others. With offers said to be in the region of $1.5bn-$1.6bn, Mr Hurley's independent streak will be severely tested.
Meanwhile, YouTube still needs to prove that there actually is a business to be built from the odds and ends of video that turn up on its site.
It must also convince entertainment companies that this can be a mutually beneficial endeavour.
In recent weeks, the video site has started the process of trying to find a formula for making money from its burgeoning audience - not least because the costs associated with distributing its videos are also rising fast - though Mr Hurley, while not giving details, insists that the company is at least financially "stable". One example: a video promoting a new CD from Paris Hilton on a sponsored "brand channel" - a specially designed YouTube page that allows users to view branded content.
Mr Hurley is adamant that the company does not intend to resort to "pre-rolled" ads, the short commercial messages that some sites force their users to watch before seeing a video.
He also says that YouTube is not going to turn to a company such as Google, as MySpace recently did, to deliver ads to its site. Such deals have become a popular way for fast-growing websites to cash in on their new audiences.
"We have an opportunity to develop our own ad system," says Mr Hurley. "We'd love to move forward on that and not let an easy ad deal distract us."
It is still unclear what advertising on YouTube will look like or what ways the site will find to let advertisers engage with its audience. But, with its own online advertising network, Mr Hurley says YouTube will also be in a better position to meet the requirements of mainstream consumer advertisers. "Google has a great product. They've built a great business but it's a different world when you're truly, truly dealing with brand advertising."
For now, some media companies at least appear willing to give Mr Hurley and Mr Chen a chance to prove their case.
In a breakthrough for the company, Warner Music signed a deal with YouTube last month that potentially lets both companies share revenue from advertising generated by the music group's content posted on the website.
YouTube claims to have developed software that can identify copyrighted music in the videos submitted by its users. Warner will be offered the choice of having the material removed from YouTube or sharing in any income the company can generate from the video.
Ultimately, this points to the bargain that Mr Hurley hopes to strike with the entertainment industry. "We're preparing them to stay relevant in this new market, with this new wave of content that's going to be coming online," he says. "There are different technologies that we're building that help them identify their content. But it does require them to work with us."
As the different stances struck in recent weeks by Universal Music and Warner Music show, it is too earlyto tell whether that isa message the entertain-ment world is ready yet to accept.
YouTube视频让你讲故事
查
德?赫尔利(Chad Hurley)脸色憔悴，气色苍白。对于处在创业初期的互联网创业者而言，这几乎成了他们的荣誉标志。如果将此归咎于严重缺乏睡眠，似乎并不令人惊讶。
赫尔利与首席技术官陈士骏(Steve Chen) 于去年12月份，一起推出在线视频共享网站YouTube，刺激了流行文化的神经。对于大多数处在他这样位置上的人而言，这一切都只是梦想。在创办后不到一年，YouTube已成为首家面向大众市场的在线视频网站，每天播放逾1亿条视频短片，仅在美国的观众就超过3000万。
事情发展如此迅速，谁还有时间睡觉呢？
YouTube狭小的办公室，就在旧金山南部偏远荒地圣马特奥一家Amici比萨饼店的楼上，这里正在酝酿的事情，使电视和音乐界瞠目结舌。
该网站可能成为首家用户自制视频成长起来的大型新式传媒公司。它也可能变成下一个纳普斯特(Napster)――这个增长失控的受版权保护资料共享网站，受到传统媒体行业的法律指控。未来到底如何，取决于你相信谁的说法。
提到这个已经不复存在的、为大量在线盗版敞开大门的文件共享网络，这位29岁的YouTube首席执行官立即作出反应。赫尔利在上月底接受采访时，对于人们拿YouTube与纳普斯特比较并不以为然。“我认为这一点儿也没有可比性。”他表示，“纳普斯特就是个音乐黑市。”
与之相反，YouTube的用户是那些希望表达自己的忧虑，或展示自制电影制作天赋的青少年。赫尔利表示：“在我们的网站上，讲述自己故事的用户更受欢迎。这几乎是电视真人秀的终极模式。”
环球音乐集团(Universal Music Group)主管道格?莫里斯(Doug Morris)上月提出的意见则与之不同。他攻击YouTube和社交网站MySpace，认为它们是“亏欠我们数千万美元版权费的盗版者。”
根据他的观点，YouTube的用户在该网站的服务器上放置了受版权保护的音乐视频、电视节目剪辑以及其它资料。即便是孩子们在卧室中一边放着他们喜爱的音乐一边假唱，也等同于在未经允许的情况之下传播音乐。
赫尔利当然不会傲慢地将Napster和使用点对点网络的一代人描述成娱乐产业的致命敌人。他措辞谨慎，经常在谈话中传达这样的消息：YouTube正设法成为大型传媒集团的伙伴，并可能成为一个使娱乐企业接触其用户的大众新型市场。
现在，YouTube的两位创立者已从互联网获得巨大财富。此前，他们也有所作为。在PayPal工作时，他们首次亲身体验网上致富的感受。在线支付服务公司PayPal被eBay收购。（赫尔利是PayPal聘用的第15位员工，也是PayPal聘用的第一位设计员。）
他认为，这两家互联网企业一样，都是“网络效应”(network effects) 的受益者――网站的用户越多，就越成功。YouTube大量的用户吸引了那些喜欢宣传自己的人，他们将自己的自制视频公开在网上，而他们提供的内容又吸引了更多的用户。
YouTube需要证明的是，在上传到该网站的视频短片中，的确存在商机。
最近几周，这家视频网站已经开始设法寻找一种模式，以便从其迅速增长的用户那里赚钱，其中一个相当重要的原因，就是与视频内容发布相关的成本也在迅速增长。其中一个例子是，该网站一个得到赞助的“品牌频道”，最近播出了一个推广帕丽丝?希尔顿(Paris Hilton)新专辑的短片。YouTube这个专门设计的频道页面允许用户浏览有版权保护的品牌内容。
赫尔利坚称，该公司不打算采用“浏览前”广告――有些网站采用了这种广告模式，强制用户在观看视频内容前收看商业广告短片。
他还表示，YouTube不会像MySpace最近所做的那样，将自身转变成一个为谷歌等公司发布广告的网站。类似的交易已成为那些迅速发展的网站从新用户那里赚钱的通行做法。
“我们有机会开发自己的广告系统，” 赫尔利表示，“我们将继续努力，不会让一份简单的广告交易转移我们的注意力。”
目前尚不清楚YouTube网站上的广告会是什么样子，或者该网站会找出怎样一种方式，让广告客户接触自己的用户。但赫尔利表示，拥有自己的在线广告网络，YouTube将更好地满足主流广告客户的需求。“谷歌拥有一个卓越的产品。他们已经建起了一项了不起的业务，但当你真正与品牌广告打交道的时候，就会发现情况完全不同。”
现在，一些传媒企业至少看上去愿意给赫尔利与陈士骏一次证明自己的机会。
华纳音乐(Warner Music)上月与YouTube签署了一项协议，为双方分享华纳音乐在YouTube发布内容所带来的广告收入提供了可能性。这对YouTube而言是一次突破。
YouTube声称，已在开发相关软件，可以在用户上传至该网站的视频中识别出拥有版权的音乐。华纳将拥有两种选择：从YouTube上删除相关内容，或与该公司分享从视频内容中产生的任何收益。
最终，这一切有赖于赫尔利希望与娱乐业进行的讨价还价。“我们希望他们涉足这个新市场，关注新一轮内容上网浪潮，”他表示，“我们正在研发不同的技术，以帮助它们识别自己的内容。但是，这需要它们与我们协作。”
