What I was trying to describe, and perhaps I didn’t do a good job, is that music videos creeping into the Top 20 is maybe an indication of people wanting a variety of content types from YouTube. If they’re looking for music videos, maybe they’re also looking for news, history featureettes, and art lectures. These other areas of content which I called “real” in comparison to the Potter Puppet Pals, for example, aren’t more or less valuable to the YouTube experience than any other video, they’re just different. And I was trying to illustrate that.

I agree with Monkey King’s comment that instead of trying to predict what users will respond to just do what you like. That makes sense and I could see that being a successful strategy. I also think he makes a good point with the commercial comment. Most of the successful viral videos to date have been fairly short, at most music video length. Maybe that’s another thing to keep in mind.

I do however still believe that if YouTube users in general are diversifying they’re interests, looking for all sorts of content, this is going to be beneficial to museums.

It is difficult to maintain balance in the creative process with popularity and some connection to museum goals. Most museums produce scholarly content and people watch it first because they are the Met or MoMA, second because the content is relevant tho them. Some places, get away with a much more critical approach looking back at the art world. But in both cases, I don’t know of any museum that has really completely embraced “fun” video for the sake of it being fun. We need to challenge ourselves to be brave and make time for that, knowing we must produce other types of things too.

I think the viral video sensation will never stop. The community aspect that others mentioned plays a major part in their success. It’s fun to be in the “know” and share the latest video craze with others. Where else but YouTube can you watch someone lip sync Eastern European pop songs or reenact Harry Potter with puppets and achieve amazing success. However, I think the rise of mainstream content in the Top 20 indicates that more often people are turning to YouTube for “real” content.

What does all this mean for museums? First of all I think this is great for museums! I think more people will be watching museum produced content as they realize it is available. YouTube and Web 2.0 are still fairly new in the grand scheme of things. It’s probably just going to take some time.

Finally, even as more individuals seek out “real” content there sill has to be community appeal. Museum videos have to have an element in them that people want to share. That element could be fact or humor, and to reach the most people it’s probably best to try a variety of concepts, which IMA is already doing quite well.