Is YouTube, supposed king of online video, doomed to AOL's fate? Aggregator on fast track to irrelevance as media bigs, marketers realize they can serve content on their own.(MediaWorks)(America online)

Advertising Age, June, 2007 by Dumenco, Simon

Byline: Simon Dumenco

Once upon a time. there was a huge, rapidly growing new-media company that consumers really seemed to love, that made competitors sweat and that just about everybody seeking to prosper online figured they had to do business with. Its shtick was that it had the common touch-that it gave consumers exactly what they wanted and made the online experience effortless, thanks to its unprecedented ease of use.

Lots of old-media companies, awed by this company's seeming invincibility and its apparent lock on the mass online audience, signed hugely disadvantageous ...