Flickr and YouTube

Dave Winer writes: “Have you noticed that there’s a formula out there, for Flickr-like sites, that, instead of providing social networking around pictures, try to do it for podcasts or videos. Examples include Odeo, Podshow, Dabble. However, none of them are gaining traction like Flickr did, and I think I now understand why. A picture is something you can appreciate at web speed. Go to a page with a photo on it, and it loads slightly slower than a page without a picture. Hit the Back button, leave a comment, link to it, whatever you want to do, it’s all over quickly and that fits the pace of the web. However, podcasts and videos don’t work like that. It takes a long time to ‘consume’ one of those media objects. So why did YouTube catch on? Simple — free storage.”