YouTube Changes Everything: The Online Video Revolution

A group of Web startups is fundamentally altering how people, especially younger people, consume video content. The underlying cause is not just DVRs, time-shifting, and commercial-skipping. In just three years, because of the Internet, the nature of television consumption has changed dramatically.

This younger group is not comprised of passive consumers. They are multitaskers, forum-chatters, mashup creators, and video stars themselves. Along with making the content personal, they are creating opportunities and challenges, while covering the costs of their entertainment with advertising.

While the transition to this next generation of television watching is inevitable, it is not clear exactly how and when the new industry developments will mature. This paper examines the developments in the last three years to understand how this has come about.