Chad Hurley posted an update on the state of YouTube today, calling the site the Burger King of new media:

Today, I’m proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you.

Looking back at those early days, we were committed to some basic principles that have since become fundamental tenants in the world of online video:

• Speed matters: Videos should load and play back quickly.
• Clip culture is here to stay: Short clips are voraciously consumed and perfect for watching a wide variety of content.
• Open platforms open up possibility: Content creation isn’t our business; it’s yours. We wanted to create a place where anyone with a video camera, a computer, and an Internet connection could share their life, art, and voice with the world, and in many cases make a living from doing so.

While YouTube has obviously nailed the user experience that people are looking for with Internet video, they have yet to resolve the legal and financial challenges that the site faces.

via YouTube Blog.