Youtube is now becoming a major tool for searching online for breaking news similar to how twitter is being used.  For example if there is a news story people will most likely go to youtube to search for a video relating to this news piece.  Some people will use Twitter to search for information regarding this news piece.

A great way to use youtube to drive traffic to your website is to be the first to upload any breaking news to your youtube account and you will see a massive increase in video views on this video.  You can download the news video from any major news site as long as you mention where you got the video from in the description.  To drive the traffic to your website you can simply place your website link in the description offering a free gift to intice your youtube viewers to click on your link and give them a free gift to download in exchange they give you their email to help build up your email subscribers for example.  Once that user is on your website then you have a better chance of getting a sale if you are selling something or a service on your website.

You can also use it to build up your twitter followers by placing your twitter account in the video description.

Also once you have reached over 150,000 views on your videos you can then apply for the youtube google adsense partner programme and make money from your videos aswell.  Joining their partnership programme means you will make money from any advertisement that is shown on that page from youtube.  You will earn commission if a viewer clicks on those adverts.