YouTube Bigger Than MySpace

January 11th, 2007

While a notable event, it isn’t a big surprise to hear that YouTube is now receiving more traffic than MySpace. It was just a matter of time.

The reason: mainstream users just get watching video online. They’ve been waiting for this forever. It’s basically a passive, easy situation these days. Load the page, watch it, laugh, share the link with friends, and leave.

There’s also viral marketing at work here: the favorite email that gets passed around, is increasingly more and more: “Check out this video! It’s so funny!” nature.

Where I think this hit critical mass however, is that now I’m getting links of video nature nature from older, retireing relatives who don’t know a JPG from a WMV. That the Flash videos on YouTube work on their computers is huge.

And when it doesn’t work, the motivation to fix it is there. I recently spent about an hour trying to troubleshoot a lack of sound on my parents’ computer because they absolutely had to watch some Christmas video my uncle was showing them at the Christmas party (you can probably guess which one — it’s pretty funny).

I can’t remember the last time my parents were so motivated to do something computer-related. Meawhile, they’ve never asked me to help troubleshoot MySpace. So I think it’s safe to say, YouTube has hit the mainstream in a big way.