YouTube Is Now TheirTube

On the way to market, this little piggy got lost.

The speculation about who should/could/would acquire YouTube has been ripe for weeks. NewsCorp, NBC and Yahoo appear to top the list.  In the meantime, and with each passing day, YouTube seems to be taking active steps to alienate the core constituencies—the musicians, hipsters and edglings--that made it such a phenomenon.  We are witnessing the big sell-out before the big sell-off.

Perhaps believing itself in a life-or-death soapbox derby with Microsoft, the once-edgy upstart has of late become radically vanilla.  Recent deals with NBC, Warner Music Group and others do solve some of its worrisome copyright issues, and do advance a media-based revenue model. But yesterday’s announced "battle of the bands" with Good Morning America and Cingular ring tones well may have been the black socks to match the Bermuda shorts. 

By going so pathetically mainstream, YouTube is pissing away its street cred with the very people who gave it value.

After all, YouTube is not about technology or even video-sharing.  Like any good brand, YouTube is an idea, wrapped in a community, swathed in a culture. 

Any one of its suitors could replicate the technology in a heartbeat.  YouTube’s only appeal is its culture, community and its central idea: you. 

The lesson: temper the impulse to please everyone, stick with them that got you there, take your love base to the finish line.  Abandoning your base makes you not only vulnerable, it makes you less valuable in the long run.

Even worse for YouTube, going AM radio is the biggest favor they could have done for Microsoft.  They relinquished their edge, lost their danger.  Now, it’s only a matter of time.  In fact, Microsoft might as well buy YouTube and quietly roll it into Soapbox.

Where do the rebels, artists and malcontents go from here?  My money is on revver.

YouTube, you should have stayed YouTrue.