Why was YouTube so successful?

It's not something that is often asked, as most people chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time, a first-mover that happened to be a free video site and rode the wave to riches using copyrighted content. This is not an inaccurate statement necessarily, but Joshua Porter on his bokardo.com tries to answer it with a little more clarity. As opposed to being just a matter of luck, he poses that there were some fundamental design features that allowed the viral growth to occur so rapidly and smoothly.....he highlights the following on his site (video sites listen up):

"Primary Video Activities that YouTube Got Right-
Here are three ways in which YouTube created an environment for growth:

Uploading: Everything to Flash video.
Plays everywhere. No platform issues here. YouTube sucks up whatever format your video is in and transcodes it to Flash.

Watching: Videos play by themselves.
The easiest activity is the one most done. Ever notice that YouTube videos play without you doing anything? Talk about making the primary purpose of the site easy…it just happens. I love this.

Sharing: Super sharing features.
YouTube has always had great sharing features. They include the code to share on your blog right alongside the video. Again, you don’t have to do anything for the code to be there. You just copy it, and it just works."

For the record, we here at Cutcaster are not trying to be another YouTube, but these simple points are always important to keep in mind.