Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 1:04 PM PT

YouTube: iPhone Already Accounts for Half of Mobile Uploads

It might just be a burst of people playing with their new, fancy toy, but it appears the the new iPhone 3GS, the first Apple phone to enable mobile video capture, is already affecting web video in a big way. YouTube, the world’s biggest user-generated video site, said the iPhone was responsible for more than half of its mobile uploads in the last week.

YouTube said today mobile video is an “exponentially” growing part of its site. In the last six months, uploads from mobile phones to YouTube have increased 1,700 percent. Since last Friday, when the iPhone 3GS was release, video uploads are up 400 percent per day.

Those are impressive numbers, but they’re growth floating out there in space without axes. YouTube declined to disclose a breakdown of mobile uploads by devices, the total number of mobile uploads it sees, or what percent of all its uploads are from mobile phones.

YouTube is likely to monetize very few mobile uploads, since it only runs ads on videos created by partners who regularly produce videos that attract thousands of viewers. Mobile video tends towards the off-the-cuff and personal. Not to say those videos aren’t valuable to the people who make them, and in some instances of citizen journalism or viral hits, a much broader audience.

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Topic: Mobile

Comments (2)

That’s really a shame if they do abandon video conversations. I thought that their launch of Seesmic Desktop meant that their video conversations had a future and that I could one day use Sessmic Desktop to conduct video conversations. I could even forsee integration btw video conversations and twitter long turn down the road in Seesmic Desktop. bummer.

Chuck — 2:34 PM on June 26, 2009 Reply
Speaking of flickr, they support video now. Why didn’t apple give the option to upload to there as well? I’d love Flickr integration to be able to (more easily) upload pics similar to how they’ve integrated YouTube.

ali — 11:37 PM on July 4, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (10)

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Seesmic: No Business in “Video Conversations… — 1:41 PM on June 26, 2009
[...] video uploads to YouTube have increased 1,700 percent in the last six months, and the power to report instantly on a developing story has never been [...]

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[...] emphases, but quick-upload video from phones and webcams is definitely growing on larger sites like YouTube and [...]

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[...] of video to more than 40 services; the iPhone itself only offers direct uploading of videos to YouTube and [...]

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[...] said its mobile video uploads were up 400 percent, with iPhone 3GS video already accounting for more than half the mobile video sent to the [...]

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[...] The growth in citizen journalism has been a key NewTeeVee topic of interest since we launched, and the CNN iPhone app should help spur that even further by bringing together two strong brands. CNN, a name synonymous with round-the-clock news, and its iReport citizen journalism efforts are gaining some traction. The network said it saw a surge in iReport activity back in June of this year during the Iranian election protests. In addition, people are more accustomed to the video power now available in their hands, and uploading video from your phone is easier than ever. The iPhone 3GS has already proven its ability to drive mobile video uploads. [...]

Be an iReporter with CNN’s iPhone Appwn — 8:14 AM on September 29, 2009
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