GooTube - The Dark Side?

Just a couple of links outlining some intelligent skeptical reactions to the Google-YouTube purchase. While the cries of 'it's all becoming too corporate' are both predictable and naive, it is the pace at which this corporatisation has happened that is alarming. User-generated content is the new gold-rush of the internet - MySpace and YouTube are among the most-visited sites on the Web. The rapid commodification of these spaces is troubling at best and, at worst, signals an unfortunate trend whereby no space on the internet can operate resistantly to the dominant model.

That said, YouTube will be an interesting experiment. Google - who, as we all know, have made an unofficial slogan of "Don't Be Evil" - are almost incomprehesibly wealthy from their participation and re-affirmation of consumer capitalism. At the same time, they do display a seemingly genuine desire to use information to democratise. How they engage this uneasy dynamic within the space of YouTube may well indicate the direction all such sites will move in very soon.