Chad Hurley

October 2008

YouTube requires no introduction. Just about everyone who has a computer and Internet connection has either visited or uploaded their own clips to this extremely popular video-sharing site. Simply put, YouTube has revolutionized the way people view and use content. No longer are established studios, networks and channels the only source of programming. Now the kid down the block, a college student, housewife or office colleague can become famous for an originally produced clip posted on YouTube. Co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley talks to World Screen about the site that changed the media world.

WS: What attracted you to giving a keynote speech at MIPCOM?

HURLEY: MIPCOM has established itself as a global event devoted to examining and discussing the distribution of entertainment content across emerging platforms. YouTube has worked hard to establish itself as a global distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. MIPCOM’s audience and the YouTube story just seemed liked a natural fit.

WS: Why did you sell the company to Google? What kind of synergies do you derive from the sale?

HURLEY: From the beginning, it was clear YouTube complemented Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. And our vision to enable anyone to upload, watch and share original videos worldwide matched perfectly with Google’s. Together we now offer a better, more comprehensive experience for our users and new opportunities for content owners and advertisers. Today, thanks in large part to our relationship with Google, YouTube provides the advertiser with the ideal proposition: the reach of TV, with the targeting, reporting and accountability of online tools and analytics.

WS: What are you doing to expand internationally and to make your service more local in various territories?

HURLEY: Seventy percent of our traffic comes from outside the U.S., so clearly the international audience is a critical and growing part of our business. YouTube is currently localized in 19 geographies and available in 15 languages, so regardless of where our users live or what language they speak, they can customize their YouTube experience to find local videos from around the world more easily.

More recently, we launched our captions feature, a new subtitling feature that lets users upload closed-

caption files to their videos in order to give viewers a deeper understanding of the video. Captions can help people who would not otherwise understand the audio track to follow along, especially those who speak other languages or who are deaf or hard of hearing. The new feature supports over 120 languages.

WS: Are you looking to produce your own content for the site?

HURLEY: No. We’re a distribution platform, not a channel programmer. It’s our community of users and partners that creates the content and uploads it to the site and it’s our users and partners that have made us the number one online-video destination on the planet. The only videos that we post to the site are educational about the site itself and designed to help our users and partners better understand the YouTube experience.

WS: How are you working with rights owners to help them protect their content?

HURLEY: Our content identification and management system enables rights-owners to control their presence on YouTube and make business decisions. One tool in this system is our Video Identification technology. Video ID provides real choice and control to content owners by combining a sophisticated policy engine with

cutting-edge video matching technology. Along with the other tools in our Content ID system, Video ID helps content owners decide exactly what they want done with their videos, whether to block, promote, or even generate revenue from their content.

WS: How are rights-owners and advertisers using the extensive measurement tools you can provide them?

HURLEY: As I mentioned earlier, we provide advertisers with the ideal proposition: the reach of TV, with the targeting, reporting and accountability of online tools and analytics. And marketers are excited by their ability to find virtually any audience they want to target on YouTube, and create for these viewers advertising and content that engages them to interact with their brand in a totally new way.

One of our products is called YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. Insight turns YouTube into the world’s largest focus group and allows uploaders to learn about the geographic and demographic reach of their videos, in addition to other data.

WS: How are you balancing user-generated content on the site with channels from mainstream producers and broadcasters like HBO and the BBC?

HURLEY: The secret to YouTube’s popularity and success is in the breadth and diversity of our community. Anyone can be an active member of this community and be featured on YouTube—from big brands and major media companies to smaller independent broadcasters to your average, everyday person. All you need is a video camera, an Internet connection and an idea.

YouTube’s partner community is made up of thousands of independent video creators and media companies within the YouTube community who want to earn money from the online distribution of their videos. And becoming a partner gives users the ability to share in ad revenue from their YouTube videos.

WS: YouTube has been involved in the CNN political debates, and candidates have posted statements on the site. Why is YouTube seen as such an important platform to engage viewers/voters in the political arena?

HURLEY: Political content has been on YouTube since the early days of the site, primarily because our platform provides a direct, unfiltered channel between the people and the politicians that they elect. More and more people around the world are realizing the political power of YouTube and using our platform to reach out and connect with their constituency. From political gaffes caught on tape, to the CNN/YouTube Debates, to world leaders like U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown setting up his own channel, YouTube is the way politicians and the people they represent can engage in a productive and meaningful democratic dialogue.

In the U.S., we launched YouChoose in order to encourage this thriving dialogue. People are turning to the YouChoose ’08 destination to keep tabs on this year’s election. And Republican and Democratic politicians and voters have created videos on YouTube around the issues most important to them. People come to the YouTube destination to hear what the candidates are saying, and once they’re there, they further the political discussion by using the site’s social features like video responses and text comments.

WS: When you first came up with the idea for YouTube, did you think it would have the global impact it currently enjoys?

HURLEY: When Steve [Chen] and I first started this company, I don’t think either of us ever fully anticipated the kind of growth and engagement our platform would provide the world. Today, with more than 280 million monthly visitors worldwide, we have the largest and most passionate online-video community on the planet.

WS: What does the explosive popularity of YouTube say about the way people want to use content nowadays?

HURLEY: What happens on YouTube is a reflection of what is important and relevant in the world. YouTube provides a forum where people gather and express themselves, share experiences and reflect on what they think about and care about moment to moment. And we’re the only broadcast medium that can provide this group with the relevant mix of mass, niche and personal media they demand. In other words, every user on YouTube becomes his or her own content programmer.

Our global community also wants to be able to watch, upload and share their content anywhere, anytime and at any time. We’ve worked to accommodate this demand by adding some powerful new ways to integrate YouTube content and community into other websites, desktop applications, video games, mobile devices, televisions, cameras and more.