Will YouTube survive?

I'm growing to really love YouTube. I've already added links to library videos I loved here and here.

Pootling about the other night, I followed up a crazy marriage of pop culture classics that I first head about on Library Garden after they had a showing at Princeton Public Library. If you play the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while viewing the Wizard of Oz, there are eerie synchonizations. Entire websites are devoted to the phenomena, for example the Dark Side of Oz and the Dark Side of the Rainbow. I don't think it works for the Muppet's Wizard of Oz (2005) but it might be worth the experiment....

If you want to see for yourself, the "Welcome to Munchkin Land" synchronization is on YouTube. Watch out for "black, black, black" repeated over shots of the wicked witch, "down, down, down" over the image of the red slippers disappearing, and "which is which" being sung as we see the witch. Also check out the munchkin ballet in time to the music and the not-so "ordinary men". Search on "Dark side of Oz" or "Dark Side of the Raibow" to see other clips.

I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to make posts like this one. According to Eric Bangeman in his article YouTube's Future (or lack thereof
"The questions on the lips of most people fall into three categories: how long the company will last, whether it will be sued out of existence, and whether someone is going to swoop in and buy it." .

The lack of "in your face" advertising is something I've always found attractive, but Bangeman speculates that while they have 60 employees and the "monthly bandwidth bill is estimated to be around $2 million" it's not fiancially viable to continue.

And, what happens if they do get money? Well, how about the creepy munchkins above? I'm not sure who holds the copyright in DSOTM and WOZ, but not all corporations have gone the way of Warner who has uploaded their entire back catalogue of music videos plus allows user-created content to use their music. Have profit, get sued.

So, if you want to see the girl who took a photo of herself for three years, or the bloke in Central Park who plays the amazing version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the ukulele, do it now.