I read an article this morning in the print version of the Wall Street Journal indicating that NBC Universal has struck a deal with YouTube to use their social video sharing community to promote NBC shows.

It was only a couple of months ago that NBC Uni was fuming over the presence of copyrighted content on YouTube. YouTube has since taken steps to curb the posting of copyrighted content, including limiting the length of video submissions by regular users. The story could have ended there but now we see this development.

It’s only natural to wonder what made NBC change their tack with respect to YouTube and decide to partner with them rather than try to squash this relatively new service. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that Napster was forced to shut down their services due to the mass infringement of copyrighted music.

Times have changed and the users are truly in charge now. This though came to mind as I re-read an early blog post from Dave Winer on this very topic. The first incarnation of Napster was mostly offline so the community was invisible to the rest of the world. The Napster connection was not very social since it ended at the anonymous sharing of media files.

Contrast that situation with the meteoric rise of services like MySpace and YouTube. These are places where people can not only share information rich media, but develop and maintain social connections. They both happen to use RSS as a way to stay on top of the latest content although I would bet that most of their users don’t take advantage of this feature. Even Craigslist, which is primarily a text driven site, has seen meteoric growth over the last few years. What makes these internet properties so valuable?

The answer is simple. The users are there. The users are there and they came in droves. This situation provides an interesting problem for the major entertainment outlets. Do they try to squash these communities and send the users scattering? Or do they jump in with both feet and join the party? The answer with respect to the three companies named above has been to jump in.

News Corp. forked over a huge sum of money for MySpace in 2005. Web Auction Giant eBay made a seven figure investment in Craigslist. And now NBC Uni has partnered with YouTube.

The trend here is clear. More and more established media and entertainment companies are recognizing the great value of Social Media and online communities. The visible nature of what we see now trumps the invisible nature of the peer-to-peer networks of a few years ago. And it’s a better bet for these large companies to wait and see what develops rather than try to build their own communities from the ground up.

MySpace has clobbered MSN Spaces. YouTube has trumped Google Video. And Craigslist squashed Yahoo! Classifieds.

All of this has happened because the creators of these services have focused on building the social aspect of these services. And because the users showed up and are intent on sticking around.

Let’s hope that these services continue in the traditions that they have established even after gaining so much success. I have no doubt that devout YouTube followers will be keeping an eye on the service to keep them honest. Because there’s always a risk that big money and content deals could force the independent users to the back of the line on the service.

I’m betting that doesn’t happen for a while. I think that the people who build these successful start-up social communities realize that the user can make you and the user can break you. And that’s just fine with me.

[tags]Social Media, YouTube, NBC, Community, Communities, Wall Street Journal, Analysis, Users[/tags]