Can a YouTube Competitor Land Perez Hilton?

Last December YouTube suspended popular gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s account. Perez had one of the most popular YouTube channels and participated in their “Partner Program”.

YouTube was slow to get a straight answer to Perez as to why his account was suspended and, justifiably, he was pretty darn mad. The result was Perez ditching YouTube for his own streaming video setup, PerezTV.

YouTube's lack of customer service (even for Partner participants!) is their Achilles Heel and resulted in a big fish getting away. The bottom line is this is a huge missed opportunity for a second-tier video site like Veoh, LiveVideo or Metacafe. They could have gained massive publicity from a pop culture trend setter and seen a huge jump in usage and accounts.

The opportunity is still there. Perez doesn’t seem to be monetizing PerezTV yet and if offered a sweetheart revenue sharing deal could still change over to a hosted platform.