YouTube: We interrupt this broadcast...

Video-hosting site YouTube suffered a five-hour outage Tuesday as a result of a database problem.

The site is the most recent Web flavor of the week, luring advertisers and record labels. But it's also facing ever greater competition from start-ups and bigger players like Google.

Bloggers are wondering whether the problem is just a minor glitch or represents more serious growing pains.

Blog community response:

"The biggest question on the table has always been about YouTube's business model; today's outage makes you wonder whether the company will be able to scale. YouTube announced that it was serving more than 100 million videos per day as of last month."
--TechCrunch

"Hopefully, YouTube.com has a handle on its gremlins because they do have a large number of competitors in the video sharing space that would love to steal away customers."
--Bloggers Blog

"Yes, I can see how people can jump up and say 'Wow... thats BAD!' But come on... it really all that bad? Don't get me wrong... I get pissed too when my server is down... but, lets really think about this: When was the last time your electricity went out? Some more than others... but for me, my electric has gone out over 10 times in the last year. Each time has lasted longer than 3 hours."
--Blog the Internet