But can the pioneer of user generated content and viral video marketing really make the transition to a paid content provider? It seems to me that the shift may be challenging from a technical standpoint as well as that of an integrated user experience. Does this represent the evolution of the YouTube brand?

YouTube currently represents the ultimate video snack bar – its quick and easy to walk up and get lost in the many esoteric offerings, banal and not so banal. Its also easy to navigate and to reference from other sources. The lightweight browser integrated experience  has been tweaked and refined to seamlessly merge the video and surrounding chatter in a highly effective way. What else would you expect from Google, the masters of the linked web experience?

But how does this snack bar evolve to a video rental portal – rather than browsing, do we now need to consider downloading? And from the anonymous, guilt free consumption of pretty much anything on offer, will we now have to login and present credit card details?  The unbounded delivery of free content seems like it would be significantly distorted by the additional requirements of pay to play, perhaps even to the extent of needing a different desktop style player application. And changing the player would dramatically reduce the nearly 100% installed base of personal computers which simple Flash delivery can claim right now.

Might this distortion of the essential YouTube brand may be a step too far?  Leverage of the phenomenal back-end and delivery infrastructure that YouTube brings to bear would certainly be a very significant development in the market of white label IP video services, and a Trojan horse into walled garden of IPTV services. Does this represent a new competitive threat to pay-TV revenue streams?

I would love to discuss this further with anyone who can visit our booth at IBC2009