It feels like YouTube has been with us for ever. It’s such an essential part of the Web, and known by almost everyone, and yet it’s only been five years since the domain name was registered. Time to take a look at the past, present, and future of the ubiquitous video site.

YouTube’s Fifth Birthday

The YouTube.com domain was registered on Feb. 14, 2005. Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder, marked the anniversary with a post on the Official YouTube Blog.

In it, he talks about how important online video has become, how building partnerships are important, and how YouTube is constantly striving to be the standard-bearer in this constantly-evolving industry.

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TubeMaster++ is software for capturing video files to your computer and converting them to different video or audio formats. It includes a video and music search feature as well.

What is TubeMaster

TubeMaster++, available for PC, Linux and Mac, is a free downloadable video conversion software that includes search engines for video and audio.  Goofy name, but an impressive variety of features for a free product.

It can capture multimedia files from your internet browser, or you can drag and import files you want to convert. Files can be saved on your PC or converted to other video or audio formats (such as AVI, MPEG, MP3, MP4, IPod, PSP, etc.)

Giving it a Spin…

I downloaded TubeMaster and gave it a try, and was impressed by how well this worked. The software is built around three primary components: media capture/conversion, video search and MP3 search. The audio/video search features in an of themselves are impressive features.

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WatchUWant.tv offers an endless stream of videos to watch, based on your search criteria, and functions in a manner similar to streaming radio sites like Pandora and LastFm.

What is WatchUWant?

From their site, WatchUWant describes the internet as being a new infinite number of videos, but states that its site “automatically separates the wheat from the chaff, recommends new and interesting content, and moreover, tailors its selection to you.”

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Rippol is an video search engine for searching and rating various TV programs and movies online.

The Idea Behind Rippol

Rippol is a straight-forward search engine for finding television programs and movies online, with searches broken into various categories for searching. From my experimentation with it I found it to be a comprehensive engine yet still a work in progress that could use a little tweaking.

What Rippol is About

According to the site, Rippol works based on how users view and rate films, with content changing dynamically per user preferences. According to the site:

“Every video you watch, rate and review affects The Butterfly Effect Network which changes the order you and others see content in real-time. The Butterfly Effect Network cross references videos similar to what you like and have watched with the habits and opinions of your friends and demographics.”

It’s a clever idea, namely the idea of cultivating similar videos based on what others are doing, in addition to your own preferences. Makes me wonder, though, if your tastes are completely eclectic, are really going to find many similar cross references?

Getting Started with Rippol

Registration is required to get started, either via Facebook or Twitter account, or you can just create a Rippol account, which is what I did.

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There’s a definite feeling that Microsoft is bouncing back after a dismal last few years which saw Bill Gates leave the company and Windows Vista hit the shelves. Windows 7 is now with us, its Bing search engine is competing with Google, and the company is also making efforts with online video.

Microsoft Returns

Microsoft is doing all it can to replenish its tarnished reputation. The release of Windows 7 is huge, and Bing is a search engine which may actually manage to provide competition for the ubiquitous Google.

Silverlight 3.0 is obviously proving popular with media companies seeking to stream video over the Internet but 2009 has also seen a few changes take place in terms of Microsoft’s approach to online video.

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Online video is growing all the time, both in terms of popularity and frequency. Which is all good for the sector.

However, navigating the breadth of choice now out there and filtering the available content is getting harder as a result. Enter Magma, which acts like a Billboard Hot 100 for online video.

Online Video Growth

Online video has grown, and continues to grow, in popularity and breadth of content. The choice of sites, portals, content, and video clips now available is breathtaking.

There are the long-form video destinations such as Hulu and the BBC iPlayer, and short-form video factories such as YouTube and Dailymotion. Between all of them the range of content available to your average viewer is simply astonishing. It would take years to watch it all.

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The video streaming sector of online video is already a very crowded place. Lead by YouTube, there are also many other video sharing sites trying to compete. And now The Pirate Bay is preparing to join the battle with a little site it calls The Video Bay.

The Pirate Bay

Whether they’ve used it or not, almost everyone will have heard of The Pirate Bay. It’s not the largest torrent tracker in the world, that honor goes to Mininova, but it is the most notorious. In fact, the people behind the site go out of their way to cause controversy, stoke the fires of file-sharing, and generally try to upset the big media companies currently fighting P2P technology.

The Pirate Bay’s latest innovation is unlikely to change how the site is viewed by people in the industry. Not content with providing one of the wheels in the cog required to share files online over a network, The Pirate Bay now wants to try its hand at video streaming.

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