Most of the buzz about Google’s acquisition of YouTube has focused on video, price and copyright but the really big story is about how videos are a harbinger of the big new paradigm of communication - story-driven virtual worlds. Earlier this year, in discussing how digital technology is transforming the way video is made and viewed, a Time magazine cover story observed:
… movies have two big problems: the way they’re made and the way they’re shown. It has often been noted that if Henry Ford were to come back today, he would wonder why no one had come up with a better idea than the internal combustion engine. A similar thought may occur to any visitor to a movie shoot. Dozens, maybe hundreds of technicians adjust the lights, apply the makeup and dress the set, much the way it was done almost 100 years ago. And as in D.W. Griffith’s day, the film still runs through a camera, then is processed, reproduced many times and sent to theaters.
The addiction to doing things that way baffles Lucas. “Do you still use a typewriter?” he asks a TIME movie critic. “Do you go to a library and consult books for most of your research? Is your story set in type, letter by letter? No. Your business takes advantage of technological advances. Why shouldn’t my business?”
In a nutshell, virtual worlds are among other things, a means of lowering the cost of video production so as with big Hollywood producers are turning to digital tools, the ever-increasing number of YouTube video producing storytellers will look to lower their costs with virtual world technology. The people who got rich during the gold rush were the folks selling picks and shovels, not the gold miners.
GoogleEarth is already a fast-moving train that’s found it’s way into the daily life of a huge audience
Neat toys are about more than creating Web pages on which Google can slap ads. Google Earth, the ubiquitous cable-news prop and workplace time waster that lets users view incredibly detailed geographic photos from around the world, has been downloaded more than 100 million times, and embedded in each download is a request from Google to place a toolbar, a Web gadget that includes a search box,
(emphasis mine)
and there has been speculation that it is a move into virtual worlds, an attempt to create a Second Life for Google. There’s already a sizable amount of video produced in virtual worlds on YouTube and Google video and it makes sense for Google to get people using their tools to produce such machinima.
Global technology PR firm Text100 produced a video showing how companies can use Second Life to improve both internal and external communications which really conveys what this handwriting on the wall looks like. And yes, the above link will take you to YouTube Google. 
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[…] A MUST READ interview with John Gaeta and Rudy Poat, two people who worked on The Matrix is available at Gamasutra: Beyond Machinima. John won a special effects award for his work on The Matrix and is clearly a visionary. This interview provides among other things, some excellent insights into the why of GriotVision, 3D and the handwriting on the wall of the Web from the perspective of knowleldgeable people involved in film and games. A little while ago, in Madden On The Holodeck, I said: People tend to view TV and film as the ultimate form of media. However, media is evolving beyond these limited formats into the realms of the immersive and interactive. […]
[…] Google+YouTube=Handwriting of the Wall of the Web: George Lucas in Time Magazine […]
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