A Los Angeles Times story titled ‘YouTube users keep dialogue running’ says that ‘a clue to why Google Inc. spent a king’s ransom’ for YouTube is the ongoing conversations among the website’s users in and around the videos:

The self-referential satire of the “Message From Chad and Steve” highlights what separates YouTube from the other online video sites: It’s a community where the videos are part of a running conversation between members.

To Google, that community is worth potentially far more than the bootlegged video clips and amateur movies that built YouTube’s audience of 63 million. Among fickle online audiences, loyalty is prized.

“What’s so unique about YouTube is that most of the content on the site is this conversation between people,” said Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who has studied social networks. “The interesting thing is that the conversations are happening in videos.”

Charlene Li, a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., called that the “secret sauce” that could help YouTube fend off competition from the rash of other video-sharing services.

“You can’t go out and build features to substitute for community,” she said.

The LA Times story resonates with the Market Watch story posted earlier on SmartMobs.