Louisa Ha - The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos

The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos

Lexington Studies in Communication and Storytelling

Series Editors: Kathleen M. Ryan, University of Colorado Boulder and Deborah A. Macey, University of Washington Tacoma

Lexington Studies in Communication and Storytelling engages scholarship in mediated storytelling, be it the traditional book or television program, the performed oral narrative, or the emerging media platform. Interdisciplinary in scope, this series looks at the myriad theoretical and practical approaches to the story. From the audience member-turned creator to new narrative, this series explores what storytelling means in the twenty-first century.

Recent Titles in This Series

The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos Edited by Louisa Ha

Friends, Lovers, Co-Workers, and Community: Everything I Know about Relationships I Learned from Television Edited by Kathleen M. Ryan and Deborah A. Macey

The Audience and Business of YouTube and Online Videos

Edited by
Louisa Ha

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Lexington Books

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ha, Louisa, editor.

Title: The audience and business of YouTube and online videos / edited by Louisa Ha.

Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2018. | Series: Lexington studies in communication and storytelling | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018011445 (print) | LCCN 2018012170 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498576499 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781498576482 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: YouTube (Firm) | Mass mediaAudiences. | Video recordings industry. | Internet videosEconomic aspects. | Internet usersPsychology.

Classification: LCC TK5105.8868.Y68 (ebook) | LCC TK5105.8868.Y68 A93 2018 (print) | DDC 384.3/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011445

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Louisa Ha

Mohammad Abuljadail

Alyssa Fisher and Louisa Ha

Louisa Ha

Nicky Chang Bi

Xiaoli Wen

Fiouna Ruonan Zhang and Nicky Chang Bi

Alyssa Fisher

Fiouna Ruonan Zhang

Kisun Kim and Claire Youngnyo Joa

Louisa Ha

Louisa Ha

Tables

Figures

This YouTube book celebrates the 12th anniversary of my co-edited book, Webcasting Worldwide: Business Models of an Emerging Global Medium , published in 2006 with a copyright date of 2007 which probably is the first book on webcasting or online videos worldwide. The term webcasting did not get much traction since then. Now, online video is the term everyone uses. Webcasting, probably, has an implicit live streaming meaning which does not describe the on-demand nature of most online videos well. I looked back at the list of the top U.S. webcasters in 2004: 1) America Online, 2) Yahoo Launch, 3) RealNetworks, 4) MSN Videos, 5) ESPN, 6) StupidVideos, 7) MSNBC, 8) Windows Media, 9) iFilm, and 10) Atomfilm. Most of these names are so pass that some of our younger readers may not recognize them at all. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and even Facebook are the dominant players in online videos domain now in the United States and other countries worldwide. These online video services are businesses that follow the rule of business: those who make a profit and gain audience support will win the game and those who dont will fade out from the stage.

When I wrote the webcasting book 12 years ago, nobody could imagine how online videos can become a fast-growing billion-dollar business threatening broadcast and cable TV. The broadband infrastructure back then was poor. But once U.S. cable companies upgraded their broadband infrastructure and businesses and institutions increased adoption of Wi-Fi broadband, along with the rapid development of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, the online video experience is much more enjoyable and on demand anywhere and anytime. Tech-savvy entrepreneurs such as YouTubes co-founders Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, and Jawed Karim and Netflixs founder Reed Hastings saw the weaknesses of the television and movie industry, seized the opportunity of online video streaming and created their giant online video empires. For YouTube, without the purchase by Google, was unlikely to become as successful as it is now. User-generated videos fueled the mass production of online videos while professional companies realized that they need to reach our digital native generation with online videos. Now both young and old can use the online platform to choose what they want to watch and watch the videos at their convenience.