Traffic to the video site has flat lined as rivals gang up
YouTube, the much-loved video site that brought you The Evolution of Dance, lonelygirl15 and other micro-sensations of the new millennium seems to be stuck in neutral. New data from comScore suggests YouTube’s traffic has flat lined since October, while upstart rival Hulu has almost doubled in that time. Bare in mind that this growth is despite the fact that YouTube is available almost everywhere and Hulu is so-far only available in the U.S. Is Google ever going to recoup the US$1.65 billion it spent to acquire YouTube? Not if it becomes the second-most-popular video site in the world. Things got even worse yesterday, when Disney announced it had bought a stake in Hulu, joining Fox and NBC Universal as co-owners.