I nearly fell out of my chair last month when I heard that Google had paid $1.65 billion (that's billion with a B) for YouTube. I wondered how they'd ever see any return on that investment. But then I saw the demographic breakdown of YouTube users.

From my own experience with YouTube, I assumed its users were mainly pre-teens and teenagers. I could not have been more wrong.

According to the Nielsen//NetRatings for May 2006, nearly three quarters of YouTube users are between the ages of 25 and 64. Nearly 55 percent of its users are between 35 and 64. In other words, contrary to popular opinion, YouTube delivers one of the most sought-after advertising and marketing demographics.

There are certainly issues with copyright infringement, but Google has pledged to remove anything that contains copyrighted material. The company has also gone a long way toward addressing these issues by forging relationships with content providers, such as television networks and movie studios.

Savvy marketers and advertisers see YouTube as a prime outlet for viral marketing campaigns, such as the "Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment" video (starring a couple of guys from Maine who parlayed their video into an appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman"), which made the rounds on the Internet earlier this year. Before that, when was the last time you gave Mentos even a passing thought?

E-mail this entry to a friend