by Greg Sandoval
June 18, 2008 1:01 PM PDT

For a long time, I've said that YouTube could become the Web's supreme ruler of short-form and long-form video should it ever offer feature films and TV shows. The Web's top video-sharing site now appears to be preparing to make such a move. YouTube has begun experimenting with delivering longer videos than the typical 10-minute clips allowed on the site, Fortune magazine reported Wednesday.

On YouTube now are several full-length documentaries and TV shows. (See one of those videos, Howard Buttelman, Daredevil Stuntman, embedded below.) The question is whether Google is making the move too late. Long-form content would mark the latest attempt to help Google cash in on YouTube's massive audience. Two years after acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion Google still hasn't figured out a way to profit from the site, CEO Eric Schmidt has said several times recently.

Google hasn't yet responded to my inquiries on the Fortune report. While Schmidt has declined to detail why the company is struggling to squeeze profits from YouTube, some of the site's shortcomings as a money maker are obvious. YouTube has become a massive video-hosting service, where people post clips of baby's first steps, a sleeping puppy, or the family picnic. Most don't attract mass audiences. Nevertheless, Google still has to pay the bandwidth costs.

Each minute, more than 10 hours of video are posted to YouTube, which "is now the majority of outbound bandwidth" for Google, Schmidt said last week in an interview with The New Yorker. "We had to retool the network." Bandwidth costs are likely less of a worry than the advertising issues. If YouTube hasn't become a cash cow after three years as the Web's top supplier of short-form, homemade clips, perhaps its time to conclude advertisers just don't like user-generated content--or at least they don't like it enough.