I wasn't sure if I was going to comment on this until I read Marshall Kirkpatrick's take over on ReadWriteWeb.  But he sparked some thoughts in me that I wanted to share.  First, here's a quote...

The video uploading platform announced by YouTube last night may not have been what many pundits expected but it could mark a major turning point for both YouTube and thousands of other sites around the web.

By allowing website owners to combine an on-site video publishing option for their users with the huge number of people looking to discover new content on YouTube, the platform will create a mutually beneficial feedback loop that will breathe new life into both YouTube and the web at large. It's also got potential to show up all the other big platform plays we've seen to date.

and one more on Monetization...

One question that is still unanswered is advertising and revenue sharing. YouTube will likely use display advertising on the channel pages for their new partner sites and those partner sites can do the same back at home. Almost every video ad on the web is annoying and there's no reason to get those involved.

First let me say that I agree completely on the revenue sharing angle.  It would be nice if YouTube shared the wealth but sites can still put ads all over their pages so they can easily monetize their content.  They just have to give up any in-video ads.  Given how hard it is for even established video creators to get sponsorship I think allowing YouTube to put one ad in the video is a small price for the bandwidth provided.

On the platform itself, I'm still split.  This is a phenomenal opportunity for developers to build video centric sites for essentially no money.  Bandwidth is getting cheaper but for sites wanting to focus on video it can still be pretty expensive.  For hobbyists I think this is great.

On the other hand, I don't like HOW YouTube is doing this.  To me, one of the keys to being a platform is seamlessness.  If someone comes to my site and I'm using the YouTube platform there should be no way for them to know I'm using YouTube. 

To be clear, I'm not objecting to the ads because the user could just as easily think they were from the web master.  But the YouTube branding is a problem for me. 

Years of embedded MySpace clips have given the brand a certain stigma.  It isn't that people dislike YouTube its that they consider it a cheap way to get video and by extension any professional site that uses embedded videos with a YouTube logo comes off as unprofessional. 

YouTube needs to realize that being a web platform means stepping back and letting the developer take center stage.  Until YouTube does that I don't see this getting much traction with serious developers. 

 Addendum: From NewTeeVee.com...

You know how YouTube has its little logo overlaid in white in the bottom right corner of all its videos? Well, it seems to have gone missing. On both videos on and off the site, the files are playing free of any YouTube branding on top of the videos themselves. Meanwhile, the company logo has moved down into the frame of the player where the “menu” option used to be within embedded players. 

So at least they've dumped the watermark.  I still think any logo is a problem but this is certainly a move in the right direction.  That said I still think my original point stands.

A couple of days ago Om Malick posted an interview of Ray Ozzie which got me to thinking about something entirely different.

The interview is a good one though and worth checking out.

But what it got me thinking about was whether it pays for Microsoft to give this interview to a big site like GigaOm in the first place?  Taking a look at Techmeme I saw most blogs covering the interview just repeated the original contents which, in my experience, is what often happens in the blogosphere. 

So Microsoft's goal, to get their message to all GigaOm readers, could be achieved without giving the interview straight to them.  The blogosphere is an arena where news flows up as quickly as it flows down.  If they gave the interview to a smaller site the story would still end up on GigaOm within a day.

So the question is: could Microsoft have gotten more mileage out of going to a lesser blog?  I think so and I think it was an opportunity missed on their part.  Public Relations is the art of squeezing as much goodwill as you can out of every move you make.  Microsoft didn't do that here.   Ask yourself, doesn't it look a lot less like pandering when a big company goes to a smaller blog?  On that note, isn't the smaller site a lot more grateful to get the interview?

The truth is, it makes Microsoft look tons better to go to a smaller site and it still achieves everything they got by going to the bigger one. 

That's why, when I hear bloggers go on about the death of PR I have to chuckle.  PR isn't dead its just changed into a more dynamic environment which means you can't just go to the big guys and feed them a story anymore.  PR pros and those who do their own PR need to look at blogging patterns and figuring out how to use them in the most effective way.

Don't get me wrong, a company like Microsoft still needs to curry favor with the big sites like GigaOm but they're better off doing that in the background.  Things like feeding exclusive tips aren't seen by the public and are more valuable to the bigger sites than a pre-canned interview anyway.  This allows companies to give the interviews to smaller sites who will praise them endlessly for a story that would be nothing more than a blip on the big site's radar.