With the news of YouTube’s $1.65 sellout to Google, I thought I’d take a look at an early email exchange I had with Steve Chen, one of YouTube’s founders. Back in July of last year I tried out YouTube for the first time, as I was hungry for checking out the emerging world of video sites. With in a couple of days, Steve messages me thanking me for trying out the service. This was a couple months before Webzine happened and I pitched Steve on YouTube being a sponsor. Here’s what he to say at the time:

Date: July 24, 2005

hi eddie:

good to hear back from you so quickly!

we should chat some more. i believe the next 6-12 months, we’re going to be experiencing a dramatic shift in personal publishing. i think similar to bloggers vs traditional journalists, similar to podcasters vs traditional broadcasters, we’ll be seeing a similar trend with videoblogging vs traditional media.

furthermore, i think YouTube is special in that it caters to a much wider audience than videobloggers. i see a lot of family videos of babies, friends videos of college, so on.

along these lines, i also think within the next 2 years, the web will become much richer of an experience. video codec incompatibiities will be a thing of the past. so on, so on.

in any case, i’d love to hear your feedback, on-going.

regarding the webzine 2005 — i know about the conference. however, as we’re very much still in a start-up mode that it’ll be difficult for us to drum up the funds to become a sponsor. but who knows, maybe things will change in September.

-s

Maybe Steve meant October. I’ll be hitting you up next year, Steve. He’s right, the web is a much richer experience. Video codec incompatibilities aren’t quite a thing of the past yet, though Flash has done much to get us closer to that day.