I totally agree! a proper message would be written with more attention, with proper words and the look would be more professional
They don't need to be professional. Their target market is not professionals. They are multi-millionaires, they obviously know how to run a business .
I guess the one they had in their code : You have reached YouTube, the premier digital video repository on the Internet. We are currently working on the site. We'll be back soon... -- atleast many won't feel that it has/had been hacked or anything!
If I had such a large site I would never post a message which looks like that - yahoo would never do that I bet
i can't believe I missed all of this >_< @humm: like ViciousSummer said, their market isn't based on seriousness. They get money for being funny and silly . Though I do feel for the "loyal" viewers of their website when they saw that message
i was on youtube all night pretty much and it was working fine. Good job it didn't get hacked....don't think I could live without that site
Well.. sure hope that Youtube won't get hack, in conjunction of the YouTube issue, a funny thing was found on Technorati, great humour(which i think), a monster attack Technorati message was appear when you visit Technorati for a link.
Yahoo is aimed towards a much wider demographic who are soley interested in web searching. YouTube has a younger demographic who are at the website to view funny videos. If you ask me, their message was great, I hate the way large companies take themselves too seriously so it's always refreshing to have a huge website which take still take the piss out of itself.
Here's an article about the YouTube maintenance messages. http://news.com.com/YouTube+Humor,+not+hack/2100-1026_3-6079314.html And here's another article about the upgrades they made. The upgrade had to do with the ability to organize videos into channels. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060602/film_nm/media_youtube_dc
I have witnessed this one as well while watching some of their movies.Its seems that this is a clear message that they are undergoing maintainance work on the site. LOL
I can think of all kinds of smart alecky things that I would consider proper to their demographic - somehow a simple "site down for maintenance" just don't seem right to me. Love the update 1, 2, & 3 answers myself.