Google's effort to turn YouTube into a money-making machine may finally be starting to come to fruition. While the company isn't releasing any official numbers, the latest reports from analysts paint a very optimistic picture for the video site in terms of revenue.

A Citigroup analyst estimates that YouTube will bring in $945 million in revenue this year and $1.1 billion in 2011. The report doesn't cover the expenses part, but, based on previous estimates, it may be possible that the site will be profitable this year.

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There are certain parts of the government’s digital economy bill that appear to have gone almost unnoticed, as more time is spent looking at the action of banning those users who are constantly being warned about their internet activities. Part of the bill was thrown out of the Lords only to be replaced by a clause that could mean trouble for websites like YouTube. The clause, suggested by the Liberal Democrats, was forced through parliament.

It now gives a court or a judge the powers to issue an injunction against any website that has been proved to have a high proportion of copyrighted material available to users. Effectively this new law can close down offending sites. This method of cutting out the supply of this type of material at source means that the three strikes rule need not be applied to individuals.

A video on YouTube was recently uploaded by a law professor in which he explained how people can avoid DMCA copyright take downs using the policy of ‘fair use’. But it turned out that the DMCA took down his video which explained how to twist DMCA rules and violate them to spread piracy.

The same law professor has also tried to upload a Warner music track on YouTube and tried to violate the YouTube music rules. Then also the DMCA had taken down his video after Warner lodged a complaint against him and YouTube pulled off the video from their website without any questions.

The reason for the take down of the latest video is not sure because some people think that DMCA took it down while others say that it was a fingerprinting technology of YouTube which pulled the video off. To make things stranger, only the audio has been deleted, the video is still there.

Unhappy with the look and feel, YouTube has decided to do more with the space alloted them. That means more nifty changes for you to peruse should you opt-in to do so. But what exactly have they fiddled about with this time round? Well, of course I’ve got the scoop of poop for you. Luckily, it’s not the smelly kind but the informative kind. Bet you didn’t even know there was an informative form of poo did you? Well, there is, and I’ve got big steaming piles of it.

Five years ago this week YouTube crept onto the internet and quickly became the world's largest online video sharing site - home to more folksy clips of kittens than you care to imagine. Today it has a global audience of 400 million - if it were a nation it would be the world's third-largest - and has ambitions to dominate screen viewing as we move to a world where the viewer decides what to watch and when.

As a business though, it has yet to turn a profit and advertisers regard it as a cheap and potentially risky place to advertise. Next month's debut of live Indian Premier League cricket matches is the company's first major attempt to monetise its global audience through a single sporting property.

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In Orlando, Florida a animal trainer died after being attacked by a killer whale at the Sea World Amusement Park. Tilikum, the 30-year-old, 12,300-pound bull orca, jumped out of the tank and grabed Dawn Brancheau around her waist and pulled her underwater. Brancheau died at the age of 40.

This incident is the latest in the string of fatalities involving experienced animal trainers and wildlife experts. December 2009: Alexis Martinez Hernandez, a wildlife trainer, died at the age of 29 when he fell from a whale and crushed his rib cage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

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“Support stops on March 13th. Stopped support essentially means that some future    features on YouTube will be rolled out that won't work in older browsers.” Google said that the interstitial will show up indefinitely until two weeks until the users upgrades to the most recent version on their browser.
 
Google is pushing both consumers and the enterprise users towards the change and expects them to upgrade to enjoy the full coverage of its various products. Microsoft on the other hand is also trying to make its users upgrade to IE8’s citing the improved security features.

That means it’s also the foremost place for you to get your videos published and viewed.  It is, therefore, a powerful place to market your business. Think about how much time you spend on YouTube.  It doesn’t matter whether you are looking up videos purely for entertainment, for information or for reference.

The fact of the matter is that tens of millions of people frequent YouTube as their go-to sources for video content.  If you think about that in terms of the potential opportunities for promoting your business, the possibilities are mind-boggling.  Make sure you are taking full advantage of them.

Because of the depth and breadth of the kind of people who view content on YouTube, you as marketer could conceivably upload video on just about any topic and chances are good it will be seen by someone. True, Youtube marketing isn’t easy.  But that doesn’t make it a worthless pursuit.

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An official in a state government building used Google to access the Internet and plugged in three words: Bob Riley, gambling. Dozens of options popped up, including a YouTube video titled "Governor Bob Riley on Gambling," in which the governor explains why he thinks electronic bingo is illegal in Alabama.

Just to the right of the video, listings of dozens of other related YouTube sites scroll down the page. The same official, who asked not to be named, tried clicking on several other sites, all with a different point of view and some from candidates running for office in Alabama this year.

When the official tried to click on any of those sites, a blue-framed message from the state Finance Department's Information Services Division popped up on the computer monitor. The messages indicated the sites were blocked.

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Olympic hopeful Nodar Kumaritashvili's luge accident has not only led to a flood of YouTube 'reports' and comments but also to just as many critical voices regarding users making money from the tragic death.

1) We Are The World 25 For Haiti - Official Video - More than 70 of today's most popular singers, including Barbra Streisand, Kanye West, and Pink are participating in the remake of Lionel Richie's song that was originally released to raise awareness of the famine in Africa 25 years ago. 9 850 907 views.

2) LUGE ACCIDENT KILLS OLYMPIC STAR - This video caused a heated debate about YouTubers profiting financially from other people's misery. In particular this one by TheRealWeeklyNews, drew attention and caused the maker of the original clip to apologize. 4 449 840 views.

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