It is official. YouTube has overtaken MySpace as the world's biggest time waster. MySpace is primarily a playground for high school and college kids who place a high value on knowing too much about people they might meet before they actually meet them. YouTube, on the other hand, is an equal opportunity time waster, with something to offer everyone.
It is almost always a mistake to click on a YouTube link, because not only will you end up wasting several minutes watching someone do something incredibly stupid on video, you will probably also click on and watch several other really dumb videos and watch them too. And finally, you will complete your, uh, "Internet research" and get back to work reading Dilbert online.
America's Funniest Home Videos and many of those other "send us your dumbest moments" TV shows may be endangered species, since now you don't have to wait months to see if that video clip of Aunt Mildred knocking over the Christmas tree made it onto the show. With just a few mouse clicks, you can put Aunt Mildred out there, sit back, and see if you have an Internet hit.
What is interesting about YouTube is the ad potential. With the number of people wasting time on YouTube, ad rates for the site will not be an obstacle to companies who want to get their message in front of a lot of people. And YouTube may have a built in advantage over search engine ads. Search engines are a way for people to go somewhere else, so the amount of time people want to spend on a search results page is very limited. But with video sites like YouTube, the site is a destination, not a way point. Of course, Google has Google TV.
Long term, I am skeptical about these sites. The numbers are high right now because of the "newbie" effect we have observed since 1993. Many new Internet services are extremely popular at the beginning primarily because they are new, not because they offer some lasting or important value. Online video is here to stay, but if the YouTube founders are smart, they will sell while the perceived value is high--remember AOLTimeWarner? TimeWarner's content was supposed to push AOL into a "must have" service category. Instead, the merged company lost billions.