When a US cable TV guys turns up to mend your set top box, rings his own help line, and is on hold for so long he falls asleep, he’s not expecting to be the next big star on the YouTube screen. But 2 million hits later, he is. When an airline treats your guitars without due care an attention, they’d better watch out, because that person can use their guitar and You Tube to make a point, powerfully, and if he’s any good, be seen by over 5 million people.

You Tube is a miracle of self expression, memory and individual creativity, but it’s also part of the revolution of social media, along with Facebook and Twitter that has, literally, revolutionized the relationship between customer and business, citizen and government.

As the ubiquity of cheap, easy to use (finally!) phones, cameras and webcams, connects to PC’s and Macs via fast broadband networks, the people have become empowered. The roles are reversed. Companies don’t ask us what we think, we tell them. We show what we do and what is happening and what we like through social media and, most powerfully of all, through video.

It’s video that reaches furthest and has the greatest impact. Want to know how to do something? Look on You Tube. Want to know how something works? Look on You Tube. Want to see what the future looks like? You’ll find it there.

You Tube is moving on from it’s original form as people embrace and find new purposes. Old people are sharing video memories, reporting on their communities and showing of their fitness exercises to physiotherapists on video and through YouTube.

Smart businesses use You Tube to communicate to their own employees as well as their customers. They plant viral messages to attract new customers, usually pretty easy to detect otherwise they wouldn’t be useful, but also show and pilot and even conduct user testing for new products, via You Tube. Now they have a dialogue, can gain insight and form their future products and services.

There is no question that You Tube has enabled video to be the future of the internet. As video platforms embrace social networking, peer to peer knowledge sharing, mobile and semantic navigation, we are only scratching the surface of what of the future holds.

As with all the successful innovations that have flourished on the internet, You Tube remains resolutely open and un planned. It’s an enabler, and what you want to do on it is virtually unrestricted, for better or worse. Improved networks will push innovation even faster, across platforms, video into every device, searchable segments, coming from the Cloud of networks at home, on the move and at work, wherever and whenever we want. You Tube has truly unlooked the genie of video and instant global access to our thoughts, emotions and actions, putting us in control.

The message has to be, don’t be scared, be smart. From a business to a government, You Tube gives you the chance to bore, cringe, or if done well, the chance to impress. Educate, share, celebrate, solve, create - so many verbs are possible in the world that You Tube have unleashed.