$5.5m follower assets
YouTube Short Breakdown
Brief Overview
YouTube is an online video-sharing platform with a mission to "give everyone a voice and show them the world.
History
YouTube was co-founded by three PayPal Mafia members in 2005.
The platform released its beta on May and attracted 30k daily viewers. The official release was in December, with 2M views per day.
Google acquired it on Jan 2006 for 1.65bn and views jumped to 25M.
Business Model
Upon videos as the major foundation, the company has been multiple offerings.
It allows users to upload, view, share, rate, and comment on videos. Furthermore, people can create their own channel to which users can subscribe to.
Distribution Methods
Channel owners or 'Creators' can opt for different ways to upload content:
- Normal videos
- Livestreaming
- YouTube Shorts
- Community posts
- YouTube Stories
In parallel, YouTube leveraged the infrastructure they have and launched YouTube TV in 2017.
This is a cloud-based paid over-the-top (OTT) internet television services and has over 70 television networks on it.
Demand for the platform
YouTube has managed to grow its user base at a 24% CAGR since 2010, going from 200M in 2010 to over 2.5bn in 2022.
According to eMarketer, YT was the second social platform in which people spent daily time on, with 45.6mins.
Supply
Very rough estimates, but hours uploaded to the platform per minute has grown to around 500 per minute, peak at which it seems to have stalled.
YouTube channels have also grown rapidly, being around 51M in 2022, up from 35-40M in 2021
How does it make money?
YouTube generates revenue through two major sources, which I'll detail below:
- Advertising
- Subscriptions
Advertising
YouTube offers brand and performance advertising by embedding advertisements on the land page, allowing sponsored videos and advertising on actual videos.
Subscriptions
- YouTube Music Premium allows users to access the music platform, download them and have no ads.
- YouTube Premium has Music features but on all of YouTube.
- YouTube TV includes access to over 100 channels and allows for 6 accounts per household.
I recently had a YouTube short video hit 8 million views— YouTube has so far been better than TikTok or Instagram from a reach perspective.
Here’s the video that hit 8M views:
https://youtube.com/shorts/27-2iNBoPMQ?feature=share
@nathanworden Very interesting, thank you for sharing! I heard people saying TikTok and Shorts are much better from an algorithm perspective to reach larger audiences, when you don't have a big following base.
@giuliano_mana I would agree with that. Normal YouTube videos I was getting 100 views. With YouTube shorts it’s usually 1,000, and sometimes it can go huge.
@nathanworden wow!! Those are big boy numbers, congrats!! 👏👏. It was a cool video and I had no idea they didn’t get paid for the gig?? Her music is not my thing but she is an amazing performer and business person.
@nathanworden you should post more of your videos here.
@ifb_podcast Thanks Dave! Yeah Super Bowl performers don’t get paid, but they usually make a lot of money from brand deals leading up to and after the performance, announcing tours, etc.
The Weekend actually said that he spent $7 million of his own money for his performance at the Super Bowl.
But yeah, Rihanna definitely the savvy business person with her clothes and makeup line.
@ifb_podcast not a bad idea, I will do that! Especially now that we have video embeds on Commonstock 😃
Great thread Giuliano! 👏👏. Love the focus on YouTube and the different metrics to measure this segment.
@ifb_podcast Thanks Dave! It was quite difficult to put numbers together. Google does not disclose anything haha
Great post! I think competition might get harder as the video content consumption is constantly rising with TikToks and Insta Reels, also in Spotify I can now watch videos. Time is limited and i think tha long form videos will get less attention over time. Shorts is a good thing but i personally prefer reels and many others TikToks. Also the ad load on the videos is very high at the moment
@mavix I agree that there will always be rising competition. However, I strongly disagree on the hypothesis long form videos will get less attention over time. I don't see a world where details are not needed.
Thank you for sharing your user perspective! I don't consume much short-form videos so it's always great to hear opinions.
@giuliano_mana details are needed, but the attention span of the GenZ is much lower than the previous generations
@mavix I absolutely agree on that, that's kind of a fact. The other day I was listening to a podcast of a psychologist/scientist that had studied the attention span phenomena. Deterioration is unbelievable, with now people having an average of 47secs span window, if I don't recall incorrectly
@giuliano_mana Yeah unfortunately i realized it for myself that my attention span is getting lower. But 47 sec is really crazy 😂
Wouldn't be surprised if they hit $100 billion in annual revenue within three to five years and five billion active users by 2030
@ccm_brett Haha I actually would be surprised if that happens, that's a 3x in revenue. Unless you are counting both ads rev and subscription rev together, which would be a 2.5x. But still.
I do see a world in which YouTube's user base keeps growing. Owning the audiovisual vertical has a ton of embedded optionality.
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