Wednesday, August 4, 2010

From Shinta-Jojo to $6 billion

How you define the very word 'YouTube'? The first word popped up in my mind is video, the second is Google and the third is... Shinta Jojo :D

Actually, the third word will always be varied based on current 'highest watched' or most popular on that online broadcast service.

Shinta and Jojo, Indonesian version (and better looking :p) of Moymoy Palaboy being a trending topic for several days on Twitter (under topic 'keong racun'). Me, of course the late response one, don't know what this 'keong racun' means. When I know about them, voila... they already come to my office for a business deal(?) or partnership maybe... I don't know the exact purpose.



I won't talk too much about this Keong Racun fenomena, the thing that caught my mind: YouTube becoming more and more powerful. Until five years ago, nobody will dare to think that online video will reach a position like what YouTube got today. As a service, YouTube evolve from a narcissism media to one of the most powerful advertising media. Until five years ago, who dare to think that one Asian girl can caught the eye of Oprah Winfrey and David Foster??? until five years ago, we will never think that Justin Bieber becomes one of the biggest teen star ever, and until five years ago, we never think that something like Shinta-Jojo could exist.










Today YouTube can influence people choice. From what music you'll listen to, to which candidate you'll vote in presidential election. YouTube gives you what old media will never gives, people's voice. When old media blown up news in the wrong direction, blurring what is quality product and what just-good-in-the-ad product, YouTube gives you what actually other people think about something. It gives you your second opinion when your friends away or your mom too busy to gives you her opinion. As advertising media, YouTube connect you to the core objective of your consumerism, your trust. If 14 mio people watched Michelle Phan make up tutorial video on YouTube using Lancome product, and it looks promising on her -a regular person and she gave you the actual way to use the product on your face (not a movie star with too much lighting or worst: photoshopping)- then maybe you should trust her and buy Lancome product. Then again, in Charice Pempenco, Justin Bieber, Moymoy Palaboy and Shinta-Jojo case. You believe that you had talent, but the media giant doesn't think so... why you have to accept that all people in the world think the same as them. Uploads your video on YouTube and voila... you get your way to become a star.

After a centuries and decades from the invention of radio and television, people are tired with controlled content. Information, the very basic of human interaction has converted to online form with the dot com boom. Internet, with all its openness jargon, gives people new media to post their voice, the voice that long ago abandoned by old media (because it's not popular enough or not much for their executives). After Web 2.0 introduced, people got their way to deliver their voice, give information based on their opinions and experiences, they gave the searcher more information they need... broad view, smarter choice.

But once again, never people think that online information would be this useful before Google coming into view (indeed!). With Google offers an easier way to access online information, people slowly turn to internet to search for it. In US Google gets 60% share of online search with approximately 400 mio search queries daily and still growing, far ahead from its competitor (Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft). YouTube gains #3rd rank in worldwide most visited site and handle almost 2 bio videos a day which is dubbed as 'nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined'. This two main product of Google, they provide their advertising service AdWords and AdSense which is their main source of revenue (almost 90% of it). hmmm... with all traffic they generated, now I know how they get that $6 bio quarterly... *BLEH*

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

wah ada Michelle Phan. tp Michelle Phan ga bisa dibandingin shinta jojo sih... krn sekarang dia sdh kerja di lancome krn youtube nya. sayangnya shinta jojo hanya sampe situ doang :D