The phrase “15 minutes of fame” is an expression that became popular after Andy Warhol said in 1968 that, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” It’s been used to describe people that aren’t celebrities, but celebrities-of-the-moment, who are everywhere in the media, and then fade back into obscurity quickly.
Now YouTube gives everyone the chance to get their 15 minutes with the help of internet speed, because they’ve extended the time limit on their video uploads from 10 to 15 minutes. Of course, uploading a video doesn’t ensure fame, but they’re giving everyone a boost with their promotion – a contest called, appropriately, “15 Minutes of Fame.” Here’s the lowdown from YouTube’s blog:
Imagine that this video is all the world will ever know about you: what would you want to communicate? Tag your video with “yt15minutes,” upload it by Wednesday, August 4, and we’ll select a handful of people to truly gain their 15 minutes of fame by featuring them on the YouTube homepage in a future spotlight.
In the same blog post, Joshua Siegel, Product Manager for Upload and Video Management, explained that they can increase the time limit now because they’re confident that their Content ID system protects them from people who try to upload copyrighted content.
The New York Times BITS blog also adds that, “People’s behavior in uploading and watching video online is changing too. When YouTube was started in 2005, its founders thought people would use it to make short profile videos about themselves and predicted that people’s attention spans would be too short to watch long videos online, said Chris Dale, a YouTube spokesman. That has obviously changed with the popularity of sites like Hulu and long videos on YouTube…”
Tags: Internet Speed, Web TV, YouTube