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A service outage of several hours represented some growing pains for the YouTube video sharing service, which has become so popular that it is now part of the comScore Media Metrix Top 50.

An unplanned and significant service outage at YouTube took the site down for several hours. Internet operational metrics service Keynote Systems noted the outage lasted for six hours.

Problems began about 7:30 am PDT on Tuesday, with service restored at about 1:30 pm PDT. During the outage, YouTube displayed a message acknowledging the issue to site visitors: "We're currently putting out some new features, sweeping out the cobwebs and zapping a few gremlins. We'll be back later. In the meantime, please enjoy a layman's explanation of our website."

Maryrose at YouTube posted an explanation of the outage after service returned:

There's really no enticing story to tell here, we weren't hacked and we weren't pushing new features. Simply put, our primary database crashed. We did make a very intentional decision to not immediately fail over to our redundant database but to instead bring up both databases simultaneously to ensure we had absolutely no data loss.
Details of the crash were not disclosed. YouTube is a heavily trafficked site, to the point where it can no longer be ignored when it comes to measuring up against other Internet powerhouses.

ComScore disclosed that YouTube had broke into the Media Metrix Top 50 for the first time, based on its July traffic. 16 million visitors hit YouTube during the month, good enough to make number 40 on comScore's list.

In online video, Yahoo led the way with 21.1 million visitors to its video site in July, while MySpace Videos brought in 20 million visitors.

Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, said in the report that "Many publishers and advertisers are responding to this trend, which means advertising dollars will continue to migrate online where consumers can be targeted with efficiency."

That was part of IAC/InterActiveCorp's motivation to purchase CollegeHumor.com which has video as a component in the site. CollegeHumor's young audience represents the demographic IAC wants to reach with advertising, and video increases the appeal and potential ad placement the site offers.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.