Youtube going broke???

Dancing babys, new haircuts and lip-syncing videos may be getting harder to find in the near future. According to some reports, Youtube lost more than half-a-billion dollars last year, a loss more than twice the size of its $240 million in revenue.

Now obviously, there’s no way that Google is going to just trash Youtube. This isn’t Friendster we’re talking about. But don’t be surprised to see major changes in the way Youtube is ran, including potentially forcing people to subscribe.

There’s a great article here that really sums up the situation and gets into more numbers/solutions.

These are definitely signs that social media may be just as susceptible to the current economy as the old media. Just ask the few hundred employees that Myspace just axed.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/16/technology/myspace_layoffs/index.htm”>workforce,

The implications for media in general are fascinating. As the web has become the primary delivery vehicle of content in this world, few media companies have created a way to make some coin along with great content.

There is no question that we are headed towards a world in which you pay to play online. The only questions are a) how much and b) when?