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I heard rumors this was coming but somehow didn't believe it. This puts some really heavy pressure on Yahoo, will they be sort of forced to buy Facebook? Google Buys YouTubePosts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Good move for Google I'd say. Internet Video sites are doing some really interesting things. It would not suprise me if in the future scholarly works include online links to videos that support their points.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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1) They already have their own video site. $1.65 billion buys a LOT of marketing -- not that they should do that, since they have yet to turn a dime with video hosting.
2) Youtube's been hemorhagging money since its inception, mostly because there's no business model. As far as I know, they've never made a profit.
3) Youtube's popular solely because it pirates videos from television shows and such. Now that it's owned by such deep pockets, watch the lawsuits come rolling in.
Man, and I thought buying 5% of AOL was stupid. This is unbelievably bad.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Yeah, unless they go on a purge and kill everything copyrighted (and thus, drive off their audience) they've just become lawsuit bait.
Why didn't they just email everyone the pin number to their bank account? at least then PEOPLE would have gotten all their money instead of Lawyers.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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To me this brought a bit of a cringe. What the heck do they need it for?
Google had pretty much set themselves up as a company who could do no wrong in my eyes, but I can't see how this is possibly a good move.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Don't think its going to be as big of a problem as you are all saying. Google has really good relationships with most corporations. I am sure they are smart enough to find a middle ground.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Facebook, on the other hand, is a brilliant buy, far more than MySpace ever was. I don't know of any other repository of accurate, detailed, and incriminating evidence of two generations and counting.
It's going to be really interesting to see how a president thirty years from now deals with threats to publish past indiscretions -- be those pictures of him drunk or clubbing, or messages with a girl he was having an affair with, or god knows what else.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Regardless of legal issues, YouTube strikes me as a questionable acquisition. The costs associated with servers, maintenence, and bandwidth must be enormous. Given their relatively sparse advertising, it seems unlikely to me that are turning much of a profit. A little bit of focus might do Google some good.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Fusiachi: Regardless of legal issues, YouTube strikes me as a questionable acquisition. The costs associated with servers, maintenence, and bandwidth must be enormous. Given their relatively sparse advertising, it seems unlikely to me that are turning much of a profit. A little bit of focus might do Google some good.
Alot of people argue its Google constant ability to expand upon new ideas that makes it work as well as it has. Its when you settle on what you've got and just add polish that things start to slow down.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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All this buying up names far exceeding their value reminds me a bit of the DOT com bust a few years back. Scary territory. Was Google's stock affected either way by this announcement?
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Oops? This has got to be one of the stupidest business moves in the past several years.
Edit: The alternative though is adding on commercials to copyrighted programs, which would thus pay for the copyright issue, and make it so that only those who agree can have their copyrighted material shown.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Maybe they have something up their sleeve, but for the life of me I can't think of what it might be.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Note this. I'm still on the fence about it being a good idea, but it at least doesn't look like they're about get hit with a large legal battle that they would lose.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I'm sure Google can afford the kinds of lawyers it would take to create a good liability shield. They aren't stupid.
I'm not sure what they're getting out of the deal though. Is it just to cash in on ad dollars? Or is this a major move towards trying to become a major media outlet?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by HollowEarth: Note this. I'm still on the fence about it being a good idea, but it at least doesn't look like they're about get hit with a large legal battle that they would lose.
What the crap is cstv, and who are these students with whom they have a relationship?
quote:CSTV, now part of CBS Corporation, is the leading digital sports media company, connecting more fans to more college sports in more ways than anyone else. CSTV brings you comprehensive coverage including televising regular-season and championship events for over 35 men's and women's college sports as well as a host of new original programming. Every season check out new episodes of acclaimed programs such as GameTracker Live, The #1 College Sports Show, Training Camp, and more. CSTV also brings you closer to your favorite college teams through broadband, satellite radio, wireless and more.
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Many of the larger media corporations have either already signed deals or are in negotiations to sign deals with YouTube. For them, it's only free advertising, at least inregards to every downloader who wants better-than-crummy audio and better-than-crummy video. Which ties in well with Google's business model: delivering clicks to advertisers. Which also ties in well with GoogleVideo's business plan: becoming the consumer's choice amongst final distributors of commercially sold high-quality downloads.
quote:When I heard about this, I immediately ran to sell my stock and was rather surprised to see it RISING.
So here's an interesting question: Did you sell the stock anyway? Or did the fact that other people are buying rather than selling convince you to hold too, even though you think it was a bad acquisition?
Incidently, I think it is a good move by google - because I definitely do not think that YouTube's success is based on taking copyrighted material. I certainly don't go to YouTube to watch grainy versions of my favorite TV shows. Instead, I think it is the ability of users to easily share their own videos (and link to other people's videos) that is the killer app for YouTube. Google now essentially dominates that market.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I did in fact sell my stock on the uptick. I'll be watching for buyer's remorse over the next year, though, and might buy in again if it goes sufficiently low. I don't think this will kill Google, but it's a sign that they're still letting technology purchases without clear revenue streams drive their development.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Or they could have the uploaders put in where they got whatever copyrighted material is involved and have an army of poorly paid drones insert links to amazon or somesuch. They'd get paid through a partnership with amazon.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I actually bought an album because it was used in an AMV on youtube. I googled the lyrics to find the name of the song, hopped over to amazon and had it in my hands in a coupla days. I could see this making a fortune.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: I actually bought an album because it was used in an AMV on youtube. I googled the lyrics to find the name of the song, hopped over to amazon and had it in my hands in a coupla days. I could see this making a fortune.
I know people who have done this as well. I honestly think that media consolidation is a good idea. When you have an audience of 10's of millions daily looking at videos, thats an audience base just screaming for advertisement.
Corporations will pay out the nose to get their products in their faces. When you google something, relevant video clips will be attached to the search results.
Googles stock went up 2% with the announcement of the purchase.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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"...EMI is continuing to hold talks with Google Inc... ...Warner Music Group..., Sony BMG - a joint venture between Sony...and Bertelsmann AG - and Universal Media have all signed content deals with YouTube."
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Youtube's popular solely because it pirates videos from television shows and such. Now that it's owned by such deep pockets, watch the lawsuits come rolling in.
The DMCA provides Google with all the protection it needs, as long as they are diligent.
Edit: Google has very good lawyers. I bet they will have a far harder time winning their book indexing lawsuit than prevailing against copyright infringement lawsuits stemming from YouTube.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Another point to consider is that Google stock is held in the individual investment portfolios of many of the executives, board members, and major stockholders of the very media corporations that might have grounds for a successful copyright lawsuit.
So the question isn't merely whether any given copyright is infringed. It is whether those executives, board members, and sophisticated stockholders are willing to lose a substantial amount of money -- by killing the rapidly appreciating value of their own Google holdings -- in order to provide, at best, a theoretical temporary&minor upward bump in value for the slow-growing stock of the media companies that they control.
In other words, there is a lot of personal incentive to reach a working agreement with Google being weighed against corporate responsibility arguments both for and against: eg the value of revenue enhancement due to free advertising versus revenue loss due to pirating by potential customers.
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