Where an how do you watch your favourite sports? What if you could watch it on Youtube - well that's what recently happened for the Indian Premier League with a live webast of the cricket tournament.

YouTube carried the league’s 60 matches live around the world, except in the United States - a first for YouTube with around 50 million viewers tuning into YouTube’s Indian Premier League channel with approximately 40% of the viewers being from outside India reports the New York Times.

Google also signed on seven advertisers in India, including Coca-Cola and Hewlett-Packard, two in Britain and one in the United States, where YouTube showed matches 15 minutes after they finished.

The only major international event YouTube carried live before the Indian Premier League was a U2 concert from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 2009, but it did not have corporate sponsors or pay the band a fee.

The New York Times reports that media buyers and sports broadcasting rights experts estimate that YouTube paid less than $10 million for the rights to live-stream the tournament for two years,with the seven advertisers in India probably paing less than US$1 million each to advertise for a year. Contrast this to the 10-year television rights for the Indian Premier League which was sold for US$1.2 billion.

FIFA has sold stand-alone Internet rights in a handful of countries for this year’s world cup tournament, but often with considerable delays so they do not conflict with television broadcasts.

This recent of live streaming by YouTube means it could carry live concerts and games from around the globe changing the experience for many people, media channels and sponsors.

What live event would you like to see streamed on YouTube?

UPDATE 7 APRIL 2010: YOU CAN ACCESS A 20% DISCOUNT AS A MEMBER OF MY COMMUNITY AS I AM ONE OF THE ORGANISERS OF THIS EVENT - JUST USE "SOCIALAPRIL" WHEN YOU BOOK YOUR PLACE

UPDATE 8 APRIL 2010: An additional speaker has been added:  Donal Rice of the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, NDA, will be talking about 'Making online audio & video accessible to all - how to reach a bigger audience'

I'm just off a conference call planning an event that the Social Media Working Group of the Irish Internet Association are working on - all about online video and audio.

If you are considering exploring using video and audio content as part of your communications and marketing this is a must attend event as the case studies and companies represented I am sure will inspire you. We'll be talking about planning, production, distribution, monetisation and measurement of online audio and video.

The event is taking place in Dublin on 22 April 2010.

Here's the outline of the programme:

13.30 - Welcome and introductions

13:40 - Lucy Campbell, Marketing Manager will be talking about the RTE Player (if you have not downloaded it to your iPhone yet I highly recommend you do so)

14:10 - Aoife Mahon and Gina McCrudden will be talking about online audio podcasts at RaboDirect and the impact to their business

14:40 - Fred Caballero of Channelship will be talking about creating online videos on a budget for your small business

15:40 - Peter O'Neill of Mason Hayes and Curran will be talking about the legal considerations of online audio and video and their podcasts they have been recording and distributing for their legal practice

16:10 - Making online audio & video accessible to all - how to reach a bigger audience - Donal Rice, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, NDA

16:40 - Sebastien Missoffe of the YouTube EMEA team talking about the benefits and tips of using YouTube as part of your online video distribution including the options for advertising on YouTube

17:00 - Panel Q&A

Oh did I mention there are also going to be some prizes of high definition video cameras - more details to be announced on that soon.

How much will it cost? Well just €45 for members of the IIA and €75 for non members. (Remember to use 'SocialApril' to avail of the 20% discount on these fees).

I've been using online video and podcasts in my business for the last 5 years and I've found that they not only assist me in lead generation but also have resulted in bottom line profit for my organisation. So will you join me if you're looking to boost your business using these platforms.

Believe me online video and podcasting has never been as easy and inexpensive as it is today.

All the details of how to book the online video and podcasting workshop are online at the IIA website.

Google has announced that it may end its operations in China following a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack originating from the country commenting that is it no longer prepared to censor its Chinese search engine - google.cn.

Last year, the search engine market in China was worth an estimated $1bn and analysts previously expected Google to make about $600m from China in 2010 with nearly 340 million Chinese people online, compared with 10 million a decade ago. Google has 31% of the market compared with about 60% controlled by market leader Baidu, which has a close relationship with the Chinese government. Yahoo has less than 10%.

David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer of Google posted in a blog:

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn,and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues.

As a side note, Baidu recently that it is creating an independent company to offer premium online videos to Chinese Internet users including movies, TV shows, sports, and animation, and it will generate its revenue through advertisements. This move with Google and the launch of this new service will no doubt secure Baidu as THE search engine for China.

For more information on this story see the article and short video on the BBC.co.uk site.

Here is a special message for all my friends on Facebook and Twitter who Santa tells me have been well behaved this year :)

Hope you have a great time with your family and friends over Christmas and New Year.