Google's YouTube is by far the most popular video destination online, dwarfing the competition with impressive stats such as 10x more traffic than any other online video sites. But YouTube management doesn't see other video sites as competition, it sees the big ole TV as its rival.
Hunter Walk, the director of product management at YouTube, told the NYT "Our average user spends 15 minutes a day on the site, they spend about five hours in front of the television."
Even though YouTube is still loosing money for Google, executives claim that the site is "on a path" to profitability. To that end, the YouTube team is continually working to attempt to keep users on the site for longer periods of time. The more time a user spends on the website, the more advertisement impressions can be served, increasing revenue for the company.
YouTube engineers are constantly tweaking the YouTube search engine, the video recommendations and other portions of the site to help lure users into viewing additional content.
If you're interested in some of YouTube's experimental features, be sure to check out TestTube, which is currently offering Comment Search, Caption Tube, Video Annotations, Warp (a full-screen visual YouTube browser), Streams (chat with others who are watching the same video as you) and other options.
If YouTube really wants to compete with traditional TV, premium content is a must, and preferably free premium content. Until YouTube has professional, long running content available, they'll continue to have users who only visit in short bursts, checking out the quick-style video clips that made the site popular.
YouTube, you've got a lot of growing up to do before you're a real threat to any traditional television service.
