Chad Hurley: YouTube Needs to Improve Search – More Live Programming Coming Soon

09
Dec

Chad Hurley: YouTube Needs to Improve Search – More Live Programming Coming Soon

author: editor category: ReadWriteWeb

Chad Hurley and Loic Le Meur just talked about the past and future of YouTube at LeWeb. According to Hurley, YouTube’s users now upload over 24 hours of content per minute. Hurley refused to talk about YouTube’s revenue, though he did mention that revenue at YouTube is up and the cost of operating the site are down. Hurley also acknowledged that the mobile site is currently growing faster than the website. YouTube also plans to provide more live programming on the site with the help of its partners.

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The ratio between creators and viewers at YouTube is very heavily skewed towards viewers. The number of creators doesn’t make up more than just a few percent of all of YouTube’s users.

Challenges: Better Search and Discoverability

According to Hurley, one of the big challenges for YouTube is to make video more discoverable. YouTube needs a better search experience, but the team is also thinking about recommendation technologies and adding more social networking features. Currently YouTube leverages social services like Twitter and Facebook, but isn’t much of a social service itself. Hurley hopes that YouTube will be the place where users consumer videos, but isn’t necessarily interested in turning YouTube into a social destination.

Moderator Loic Le Meur asked Hurley how YouTube manages to filter content on the site and what the team decides to take down. Hurley mostly sidestepped this question, though he did mention YouTube’s technology for finding copyrighted material.

Handful of Users Make more than $1 Million per Year

Hurley noted that a handful of users on the site make more than $1 million per year from their videos on YouTube. The company wants to create more opportunities for publishers on the services, though Hurley didn’t go into details.

YouTube in the Living Room

Asked about YouTube on TV and in the living room, Hurley said that his vision is basically a “box, an Internet connection and pizza.” He did note, though, that all TV will move towards an on-demand model.