This afternoon's YouTube NZ launch didn't add much to what I previewed this morning, bar some slightly creepy loneygirl15 trivia (keep reading); the fact there's no big local content initiative equivalent to YouTube & Google's combined original effort to cover the Aussie election in new-fangled multimedia fashion; and the fact there's a paucity of local content partners compared to YouTube Australia. The three in NZ are TVNZ on Demand, a tourism campaign from 100% Pure NZ (hmm, not sure if that qualifies as a content channel) and Sky News. Even TVNZ on Demand's stuff is really just teasers designed to drive traffic to tvnz.co.nz; certainly nothing close to the scale of the BBC's YouTube tie-up.

Three Kiwi super-users were trotted out and interviewed onstage, which was cute (pictured above on my cellphone, left to right - musicalkiwi13, Lord Sardonic and wizardneedsfood).

However, the US-based YouTube staff hosting the event seemed wholey unaware that made-it-big on YouTube sensations Jessica Lee Rose (aka lonelygirl15) and Flight of the Conchords had NZ origins.

There were also two Aussie users onstage, and three of the panellists (and other users in the audience) filmed absolutely everything - including, in multicontextual post-modern mayhem, their own YouTube clips being shown to the audience - so I'm sure the vids of the vids are already appearing on the site if you're keen.

I did get told one piece of trivia at the drinks afterward (and here was me worrying I'd have nothing to put in my notebook): all of YouTube's conference rooms in the US are named after super users, and the first ever conference room was called ... lonelygirl15.

I asked if there were any plans to cache popular videos locally, so they might serve a little faster. Nothing immediate, but it's something they're thinking about.

I also asked if any NZ super users were about to get a little slice of Google's multibillion profits - as has started to happen to a limited degree overseas - but, no. Well, I'm pretty sure. We had accent issues. Grown-up channel partners like the BBC and TVNZ do get a slice of the revenue from Google ads placed around their YouTube clips - though it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the sort of dosh they're used to from commercials screening on broadcast television.

Incidentally I had a brief word with TVNZ on Demand's Jason Paris on the way out. By his count, the service is going great guns, with 170,000 clips downloaded last month.