Can you imagine if a newspaper tried this?

I love the approach YouTube took to whatever it was doing to its site that made it impossible for me to upload a video to my blog today.

This is the note on the screen explaining why I couldn't do anything.

"We are currently performing site maintenance. Be cool - we'll be back 100% in a bit."

Can you imagine if a traditional news organization tried the same thing? I think it would be blasted by critics. Maybe that'll happen to YouTube. But I doubt it. I think people give the benefit of the doubt to organizations that clearly provide them great service in normal times.