YouTube Stumbles

Regular readers know that I've been spending a good deal of time watching and creating videos on YouTube. It's been a very interesting and informative experience. I've formed some close relationships in a short period and have learned a tremendous amount about how and why people create material for the web. I've also laughed uncontrollably more times than I can recall. As a result of that experience, YouTube's growth has made perfect sense.

But problems have been brewing at YouTube for the last couple of months. No, not copyright problems. Those "meta" issues rarely impact the folks who frequently post videos. No, the problems have been more mundane and more irritating.

First, YouTube's growth has presented the company with what can only be described as unprecedented technical challenges. Accepting over 65,000 video uploads a day, serving up 100,000,000 views daily, and managing approximately 25,000,000 unique visitors monthly; I don't know what other site has had to manage numbers like that. I've watched the company struggle with these demands, and participated in the user community's conversations about the problems those demands have caused. Most annoying of these has been the breakdown of most of the site's support functions: internal messaging, video comment management, help responses...all of these have routinely failed over the past couple of months. So, while the site continued to accept and serve up videos, many of the functions that surround those videos became increasingly unreliable.

For example, one of the keys to YouTube's community dimension is the ability to comment on another user's video. Video producers thrive on comments and many users provide great feedback via that mechanism. Literally thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of times, comments would be patiently written by video viewers (all adhering to YouTube's 500 character-per-comment restriction and rules limiting users to no more than three comments every ten minutes) only to have the comment simply disappear when the user hit the "Submit Comment" button. You can imagine the consternation.

More and more comments about comment problems started to appear. Videos about comment and messaging difficulties started popping up. Users were becoming increasingly frustrated.

YouTube management, however, remained mostly silent. No video messages acknowledging the problems, no indication that the company understood the source or magnitude of the problems. Nothing. At first I thought the company's leaders were simply riding out what they felt was a short-term circumstance. But, as time went on, and users became even more upset, I began to wonder about the judgment of YouTube's leaders.

Steve Chen, one of the company's co-founders, did communicate with some individual users in a "back channel" fashion, which only made matters worse. A user would put up a video saying that (s)he had received an email from Steve in which he acknowledged the problems and promised some action. Other users, either doubting the veracity of the information or frustrated by the lack of action, refused to be placated. Real anger started appearing.

Second, YouTube found itself plagued with a phenomenon as old as the Internet itself: incivility. A substantial fraction of users, called "haters" by YouTubers, routinely criticized, heckled and harassed targeted individuals. Several of those targeted suffered from disabilities of one kind or another, making the attacks all the more callous and cowardly. Often, the harassment took on an ugly tone: gay bashing, sexual threats, racial and religious slurs. On several occasions, user accounts were hacked and all forms of mischief conducted: videos were deleted, user privacy was violated, and people were threatened via email and personal telephone harassment.

Because activities like these violated the company's Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, users waited for YouTube to respond. Rumors of a self-policing mechanism (a "Street Team") spread, fueled by frequent private messages from Chen to individual users. But, nothing happened. Apparently, "free speech" considerations trumped restrictions. Some of the most serious violators were banned, but many (all?) simply reappeared in minutes under new identities. (Many users contacted their local police and/or FBI offices as well as retaining personal attorneys in attempts to put an end to the harassment.)

All the while, nothing from YouTube's leaders.

Of course, the Google acquisition had raised user expectations that both technical and non-technical problems would be addressed. After all, the $1.65 billion figure that filled all the headlines in October sounded like just the ticket. But, nothing seemed to change.

The organizational consultant in me couldn't quite figure out why a hot, hip, Web 2.0 company like YouTube, recently acquired by, arguably, one of the best, (and smartest) 21st century companies, (for whom the "don't be evil" motto is more than simply corporate BS) would just ignore such a growing wave of discontent. Serious, thoughtful community members began having public conversations about whether or not YouTube really gave a damn about anybody who wasn't in the LonelyGirl15 celebrity camp.

Still, nothing from YouTube's leaders.

Then, on December 17, a user named johnreagannumber1 uploaded a video.

In this video, johnreagannumber1 announced a John Lennon-style "bed-in" in protest of the problems users had been having with comments and emails. It was viewed a couple of thousand times and, In short order, a couple of hundred videos were made supporting the "movement."

And still, silence from YouTube.

On Christmas Eve, I jumped in with a message of my own, asking Steve and co-founder Chad Hurley a question: what kind of company do you want to be?

Not surprisingly, but nonetheless disappointingly, no response. As the holidays came and went, more and more talk of user-disappointment emerged. Several people spoke of leaving YouTube. Others wondered if the "community" aspect of the site (most frequently contrasted with the "professional" aspect, symbolized by the CBS and NHL deals) really mattered to the company. One user compared the community dimension to the dirt under the toenail of a rhinoceros; completely insignificant and meaningless to YouTube's leaders.

And then, a couple of days ago, users started making videos about a newly discovered alternative: LiveVideo.com. The response was remarkable. As if scouts had located water in the desert, hundreds of YouTube users went over to LiveVideo and began registering their screen names (many of the most popular were too late and had their names scooped up by opportunists of various stripes) and posting what sounded like liberation videos, singing the praises of LiveVideo's flawless functionality and hate-free environment.

I was amazed to see the rapidity of movement and vehemence of response. No doubt about it: these were people with stars in their eyes, ready to believe that, this time, the green grass really was going to be perpetually so.

The point of this overly long synopsis is this: we live in an age of heightened expectations. We expect reliable service, particularly from those to whom we have entrusted important functions. People who put scores of hours making and uploading important work, and scores more commenting on that made by others expect that their commitment will be recognized and met in kind by the company they've trusted. YouTube has established a tremendous market presence by offering a service that has tapped into a deep well of desire on the part of thousands, maybe millions, of people. But the power implicit to this presence means that people will not tolerate a lack of appreciation of their commitment on the part of a company. Unlike casual fans, passionate users bite when disappointed.

If markets really are conversations and brands really relationships, YouTube's got a lot of explaining to do to patch up the fissures that have developed in its relationship with many of its most loyal users. It remains to be seen if they care enough to do so.

Comments

[ZACK BICKNELL ZACKSREPAIR]

It's only a matter of time before this goes in one of two directions.Utubes poor
performance has led to Loyal subscribers having to search for for other sites. This will lead to Utube revamping its image and upgrading or LiveVideo taking Utube's Place as the leading vlog site. As with any free market environment, The forces of supply and demand are going to drive this thing much like the stockmarket. Wise investers are going to deversify by having
Two accounts active and leaning towards the better host. Its only a matter of time.

Keep up the balanced critiqes. nice work ZACK

[Natalie]

Great summary, Tom.

It's like watching a family member or close friend destroy his life and reputation in a downward spiral of negligence and denial.

You want to help, to make suggestions, but he blocks you out, refusing to acknowledge that there's even a problem.

You continue to defend him to outsiders, hoping he'll see the light and live up to your praises, but you fear he'll soon drag your reputation down along with his.

I can't fathom what YouTube and Google are thinking, but I keep hoping against hope we'll hear something from them soon. The maintenance downtime we had last night and today, with no noticeable improvement, isn't encouraging, though.

[Ken G.]

Great summary of the problem and the reaction. I too am a YouTuber playing with LiveVideo. I've looked at nearly all the other competitors and simply yawned and turned back to the 'Tube. But this time it's different, and it's different for two reasons.

1 - YouTube's technical quality and reliability continues to go down hill. Whether it's due to the strain of so many users, or simply incompetance, we don't know, because there's nothing about it on their blog and they don't make videos (go figure).

2 - LiveVideo, more than any of the other would-bes, gets that community and text communications are as important as the videos for the hard-core users. The interface is familiar, with a few twists - some good, some just different.

Not everything is better at the new place. One quick example: I like the YouTube QuickList feature that's nonexistant at LiveVideo. But, on a balance, right now LiveVideo is working better than YouTube, but YouTube has the viewers, and isn't that what we're all after?

I haven't chosen a final resting site for my videos yet. I'm keeping one foot in each pool for now. LiveVideo could crumble under the pressure of so many new users. YouTube could start working properly. Monkeys could fly out of .... I'm keeping my options open.

- Ken (kenrg at each video site)

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks for the comment, Zack. We'll see if the defections or general turmoil have any impact whatsoever. Let's remember that the vast majority of traffic (we all believe) is from people interested in Paris Hilton's anatomical revelations. That makes concerns like ours very small potatoes. Of course, such as assessment is foolhardy as this kind of dismissive approach to (highly loyal) customer concerns is reflective of deeper shortcomings. I'm afraid we're seeing the consequences of inexperience playing themselves out.

Unfortunately accurate assessment of the current circumstances (in my view), Natalie. It's a head scratcher to me.

Ken, you've captured the moment perfectly. We're all just sittin' there watchin', hoping things will get better but unable to find evidence that they will. In a bizarre way, like Iraq.

[KennyCrane]

Good post, Tom. I think the YT/LV situation is in its early stages. We'll have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, I've joined LV and I'll be writing about some of it's vids on YouTubeStars. I also plan a LiveVideo Top 100 Weekly Chart to go along with my YouTube Top 100 Weekly Chart. I'm also modifying my YTStats service to allow users to list videos from LV as well as YT in their "My Favorite Videos" list. I think it will be helpful to have one list where fav vids from various different video sites can be stored. Whatever happens, these are interesting times and I'm always glad to see or read what your thoughts are!

[cambridgee on yt]

Tom, Good summary. I have followed this, albeit as a lurker. I enjoy the site and many of the vloggers. remember that yt was a few dozen people strong when googled. yt was googled because of the clicks generated by this new outlet for video content. no money has been made yet. technical issues take time to resolve. they will be resolved and probably will be resolved by applying lessons that google has learned about truly massive bandwidth processing. it will not likely be changes to the existing yt infrastructure which maybe could be done quickly as bandaids and probably would not work.
LV will likely have issues as well. with google behind yt and a large head start - bet on yt.
why yt did not have a better communication plan with the users that generated their value - i don't know. as a computer - go illini - engineer myself, i suspect they may have been the right people to conceive and implement a truly great new site but not the right people to manage all of the other issues that evolved from their creation. that they built something that scaled up as well as it did is technically impressive. that they kept up with the growth (storage servers, processing servers, etc) is amazing. all with no profit and no clear view of where profit might be derived. getting bought out because they had clicks might have been the hope. and it happened. now they are turning an aircraft carrier. it takes a while. adds generate revenue now on the web. so deals have to be made. what adds will work on yt depends on understanding the demographics of the visitors. not so much you and the others who created one of the many communities but those millions who visit each day. what will they buy. who are they. i doubt if yt had a very good idea. they are figuring it out since googled. i am afraid it will never be as fun as it was when you started. the thrill came from the fact that it was so new. your a vid community vet now. what comes next is not likely to be as exciting as being an early adopter of this stuff.
but the tech will get better. the total numbers will go up. and i hope counting subscribers etc will become less of a motivator. much of the stupid drama came from the counting in one way or another. the communities will organize. the group idea will become important so you can find stuff on subjects etc that interest you. this will also allow better targeting of adds. changes will not be dramatic but will follow a simple premise of division based on special interests.
anyway - just have fun - dont sweat the problems so much. I knpw they are frustrating especially when you have a need to generate 100's of comments and replies per day. as a lurker I rarely even comment. I probably will begin posting if i decide on some things i want to talk about. i ont want to get where i just make a vid comment to every vid that generates some thought.

[GeorgeLikesTacos]

You hit the nail on the head.

[Gina]

Dear Tom, This is italianstallionette. I am very upset to figure out that you have blocked me from watching your videos. I have been a fan of your fo some time now, and I cannot possible think of as to why you no longer wish to have contact with me. What have I done? I want to help you if I can. I would never try to upset you, and the only thought I have is that you were told something false about. Please, can you help me to understand what I have done to make you feel this way about me. I am so sorry for whatever has happened.

I'm very upset that I have hurt you, gina

[David Bailey]

Hello Tom
This was a very well written article.
I feel ,however,that you answered your own question quite early on.
It is the scale of youtube's success in such a short time that is the problem.
I don't think that Mr.Chen et al believed that they were starting a 'community' when they launched their site.
I personally do not believe that youtube IS a community.I believe that a community has grown WITHIN youtube,which is a different thing altogether.
Live Video is too SMALL yet to experience the difficulties of youtube.If it grows it surely will.
As for the haters,most of the negative comments on the videos are mindless insults.Some I find quite pithy and humourous.
I have traded insults via comments with other youtubers.Nothing vitriolic.
I cannot stand religious intolerance and jump on it when I see it but I accept that it is out there and,therefore,is bound to appear on youtube.Art mirrors life.
I think Mr Chen IS right to not remove the haters unless of course someone is clearly disturbed and/or violent.
Anyway,I've rambled on too much as usual!
Cheerio!