I've followed Google's meteoric rise from quirky startup to global search leader while rooting for its success at every step. It showed that it could remain creative and cool even while playing with and eventually becoming one of the grownups. It was a verb; it had innovative applications and was making a difference. Google promised to save us all from a world dominated by grey uncaring multinationals. Just take their slogan "Don't be evil for example, such a welcome departure from the limp meaningless one-liners that usually pass for corporate taglines. But there is one part of the company that is driving me nuts and shaking my faith in the infallibility of the messiah from Mountain View. Google's enfant terrible, YouTube.

Now unless you've been confined to a hut in the most desolate part of the Amazon for the last two years you probably know a thing or two about the worlds most popular video sharing site. YouTube launched on February 2005 and just snowballed. 2006 was the summer of YouTube where its growth eclipsed even that of fellow Web2.0 wunderkind MySpace, a site directly responsible for YouTube's popularity. A survey at the time pegged the number of daily clips viewed on the video sharing service at some 100 million and the suitors started calling. That October YouTube said I do to Google for $1.65 billion in stock, a dowry well over twice what News Corp had paid for MySpace just fifteen months earlier. This acquisition, Google's second largest at the time was hailed as one of the defining moments of the new internet era. Google now owned the mouth piece of the zeitgeist and wires were buzzing with speculation as to how the company would leverage this unprecedented power.

YouTube's claim to fame is it allows you to broadcast yourself. A simple post can send your humble video zipping from one computer to another to be replayed, commented on and forwarded, until your not so private moments are magnified a thousand fold for the world to see. It taps into our exhibitionistic and voyeuristic natures, simultaneously satisfying and encouraging our habit. On-camera confessions live next door to home videos and performances by American Idol hopefuls. It should be a beautiful thing this technology that gives everyone a voice, a triumph of the human experience, a big global year book which everyone can sign so the mark they leave is seen by generations to come. But it's not. All notions of the potential of YouTube as a catalyst for social evolution dissolve when one spends anytime on the site. Yes there are a few important events that it's had a hand in but it spends most of its time catering to the lowest common denominator. And we can't seem to get enough of it. My assistant is practically glued to YouTube and now that I got him an iPhone it's even worse. Apple's deal with YouTube that makes their videos accessible on both the Apple TV and iPhone means he does not need to be at his computer to get a fix…or to forward me another annoying video link.

Maybe it was a really slow news day but even so you know there is a problem when both CNN and MSNBC are reporting on a YouTube clip featuring the emotional meltdown of a distraught Britney Spears fan. Following her lackluster comeback performance during the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9 Britney Spears found herself on the receiving end of a lot of negative press. This prompted 19 year old Britney fan and YouTube regular Chris Crocker to rush to her rescue imploring the media to leave her alone and castigating them for their insensitivity to the singer's personal crisis. His two minute, teary eyed j'accuse received 2 million hits within the first 24hours of posting. The clip has since racked up over 6.5 million views and almost 100,000 comments making "Leave Britney Alone Guy a bona fide YouTube celebrity and an even bigger story than Britney herself. His total YouTube scorecard is around 29 million plays for his 60 or so videos. He's been mentioned on sites from Australia to Senegal, been spoofed on TV by Seth Green and even received overtures from MTV about providing videos for their website. I reviewed Crocker's magnum opus after being forwarded the link and also checked out some of his earlier productions. He wears more mascara than the lead singer of Green Day while expounding on everything from pubic hair to pop stars, in other words he is exactly what the YouTube generation is interested in watching.

For all his idiosyncrasies "Leave Britney Alone Guy is not unique in one sense. His story, that of going from relative unknown to YouTube phenomenon has been repeated ad nauseam. A few people are certainly more deserving of attention than most. Case in point is Smosh. The duo from California posts skits and mock music videos that have garnered a large following on YouTube. While a lot of their videos show moments of real comedic inspiration on par with Saturday Night Live, their most popular one is just tedious footage of the two guys goofing off and lip-syncing the Pokémon theme song. It received over 24.7 million views. What message does it send when the least of their efforts receives the most attention? That in order to be rated highly on YouTube these guys should toss out their scripts, forget satire or talent and just make the most inane, idiotic video possible. Maybe they should film themselves skateboarding off a roof or passing gas over an open flame (both skateboard accidents and flaming farts are popular videos on the site). The sheer size of YouTube means one can easily waste hours going from one mind numbing submission to another. There are posts that are silly yet harmless like the seemingly endless parade of hysterically laughing baby clips; 'Baby laughing at the Wii has recorded over 2 million views so far. And at the other end are videos entitled "Tiger attacks man on elephant or "Lion attacks hunter that appeal to the same bloodlust that packed ancient Romans crowds into the colosseum. Then there are the ones that are hard to categorize like the "lonelygirl 15 phenomenon, clips by a vlogger who turned out to be an actress and her story a hoax a la Blair Witch concocted by two filmmakers. In order to find the few gems you need to wade through a ton of junk.

When Google purchased YouTube it inherited their legal baggage as well. At anytime a cursory glance at the website will uncover clips lifted from TV. One of the videos that gave YouTube early buzz in its young days was the Saturday Night Live skit "Lazy Sunday. On February 2006 NBC asked YouTube to remove the copyrighted clip, they complied but continued to have a laissez faire attitude toward their users' blatant disregard for copyright. Then on March 2007 Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the video sharing site claiming "massive intentional copyright infringement involving at least 160,000 unauthorized Viacom clips that had been uploaded onto YouTube and totaling more than 1.5 billion views. I was only surprised it took so long. You'd think staring down the barrel of a billion dollar legal gun would cause YouTube to be more vigilant about what its users upload but snippets from "The Daily Show, "South Park, "Laguna Beach and "SpongeBob SquarePants can still be found on the website. The record companies have found a way to turn the popularity of music on YouTube to their advantage, posting their artists videos on the site and preempting users own submissions. However the television and cable networks who have more to loose still can't manage to tame YouTube. According to a 2006 Harris Interactive study 42 percent of online adults in the United States reported watching at least one YouTube video and 32 percent of regular YouTube users claimed to watch less TV as a result, the numbers can only have grown since. Billions of dollars in revenue (TV advertising is a $70 billion business) are at stake because advertisers will follow the audience and if it's on YouTube that's where they will go. So Viacom is trying to prevent YouTube profiting from content that it has not paid for.

YouTube's legal woes may help explain why such mediocrity is celebrated on the site. In their bid to foster more original content are the websites owners promoting the most mindless and easily viral videos? Are they trolling their huge catalogue of posters looking for the most bizarre, most out there characters to present as the next "web-celeb and give their users something to watch that doesn't come with a legal headache attached? If a video says it's been viewed 2 million times it is more likely to be watched and forwarded than one that indicates interest from only 100 people. It's a self fulfilling prophecy and it would be easy for one to jack up the page views on a clip if one knew how. Or maybe it's the users themselves. How do you cheat the system? Just reload your page as many times as you can and ask your friends, relatives and the occasional stranger to do so as well. Or you can use programs that do this for you; there is a Firefox extension that will reload your videos automatically, hypothetically speaking of course.

Though it is full of hopeful wannabes, YouTube can't be a breeding ground for talent or produce the next great entertainer because that is precisely what it does not promote. It is like an accident that people can't look away from even though they know it is wrong and in poor taste. For all its talk of broadcasting yourself what it really wants you to do is make enough of a spectacle of yourself to be noticed for a while, and then forgotten. Like the class clown at whose antics we laughed and applauded but then deserted when they were punished. So while I am all for Google retaining its irreverence and relaxed corporate attitude, YouTube is one part of the company whose time has come to grow up.