By buying YouTube, Google's pretty much locked in their position as the dominant player in the white-hot Web video segment, an area of the Web that shows no signs of slowing down. And while the traffic that GoogleTube's going to generate certainly won't be the sum of both the sites, it's not hard to see how the raw numbers are going to be pretty darn attractive to advertisers far and wide, right?

Well, maybe. The rough-and-tumble world of user-supplied content may make advertisers a little nervous about attaching their name to the site, not to mention the copyright issues that have arisen over the service being used to re-post copyrighted content.

Format-wise, some of the early attempts at creating advertiser-driven YouTube "channels" (like the Paris Hilton channel) have been failures. Some have even likened the YouTube hype to the frenzy surrounding Napster in the early days, a claim that makes a lot of sense if you look at the parallels between the two services.

I'm not as down on YouTube's chances as Mark Cuban, but it does seem like if the whole Web video thing is going to continue to grow (and not just be a dot-com-y flash in the pan), there's still a long way to go. Yeah, they've got the traffic right now, but as Cuban's said before, they're more like a "TV-hit" (with a limited shelf life) then a long-term "network-like" play (such as Google itself or Yahoo). In order for Google to see some long-term returns on their investment, YouTube's gotta be in there for the long haul once the hype's cooled down.

How? Here's some ideas:

1. Improve the search: This is one aspect that could be mightily helped by Google, but even with Google's incredible search technology they've got a long way to go. Video's a lot harder to search then text, but if people can't find what they're looking for they're going to leave. If you've spent any time on YouTube or Google Video actually looking for particular content, you know how sad the search functionality is.

Fortunately there's hope. Google oughtta start looking at technologies such as Viddler that allow searches within video using tags. They also need to look at enhancing YouTube with Amazon-like recommendation technologies to allow users to search for content related to content that they already like. Yeah, there's rudimentary technology to do this on the site now, but it kinda sucks.

2. Use humans: Yes, people are expensive. But there's a reason that networks spend gazillions of dollars employing programmers who arrange content in a way that's advantageous to both advertisers and viewers. The problem with YouTube now isn't a lack of content...it's too much content. Human channel programmers who could scan for the best stuff and arrange it in a more entertaining and quality-controlled way would go far to help make YouTube the TV-killer it could potentially be. If they don't do it, someone else will.

3. Build in playlists and "program your own channel" functions. TV is primarily a "lean back" technology. Online video isn't. If convergence is going to take place, people need the ability to set up the video they want and then kick back to watch for extended periods of time. As technologies such as Apple's upcoming iTV start bridging the gap between PC and TV, nobody's going to want to keep clicking every 5-10 minutes in order to bring up a new piece of content.

4. Work on the advertising model. Yeah, I know they're doing this now, but there's still a lot of work to be done to make online video more attractive to advertisers. Yes, they're starting to salivate over the ever-growing viewership numbers but nobody's yet been able to put together a model that works well. Creating a more TV-like experience with "build your own" or human-arranged "channels" would allow the insertion of advertising in a less intrusive way. People watch online video because they don't want advertising? Sure...but if the ads were also ones that took advantage of the medium more using greater interactivity or the ability to "save" interesting links for later without interrupting the experience, people might not fight it so much. Google should take a page from their own success with search advertising: if ads are tied to content that people are looking for, people actually welcome them.

5. Negotiate with the content providers to pay royalties back for copyrighted content. With Google's cash and clout, there's no reason that a better payment system couldn't be arranged for copyrighted content. Sure, the MPAA needs to get its collective head out of its behind first, but if a system similar to the ASCAP system on radio was put into place where the content owners were payed back by Google for the copyrighted video played on the site, then everyone could be compensated and everyone would be happy. The minor cost to do this would be far offset by the savings in legal fees.

6. Consolidate content: While its nice that the networks are starting to play episodes of their shows the next day on their sites, it's kind of a pain to have to hop around if you want to view multiple shows. Working out deals to become to become a portal for all content from commercial sources (accompanied by appropriate advertising, of course) would make the experience of going to YouTube orders of magnitude better than it is now.

7. Work convergence the other way. They've got the content...why should it only be viewable on the Web? It wouldn't be a difficult technical challenge to create pre-programmed YouTubeTV cable channels (or, perhaps, Video On Demand channels) that were transmitted into the home via cable. It'd offer new opportunities for revenue from expanded advertising and would probably introduce the service to a whole bunch of folks it isn't reaching now.

So Google's got YouTube. Now the've gotta make it worth the money they paid. Thinking of it as a network...not a "site"...needs to be the first step.

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