Google to buy YouTube?
It’s somewhat speculative right now, but the Wall Street Journal reports Google is interested in buying YouTube.
Whether or not it actually happens, you can see the trends in online media:
Social media matters. Google already has its own prominent video service, but YouTube succeeds because it just feels so much more of a social site, and there is a huge network of blogs and people that feel attached to it.
Social media is hard to plan. Google is a huge company that gets tons of traffic and many talented people, and it still can’t keep up with YouTube. I’m not sure you can make this stuff happen through money and talent alone.
Traditional media is no match. TV networks spend billions on their programs, personnel and equipment. YouTube spends nothing on the creative side and gets 100 million visits a day. Clearly, much of that includes clips from South Park and The Daily Show and CNN, but when you look at the most-viewed videos of any given day, just as much is average people doing weird things, and average people producing some pretty cool stuff.
And yeah, in terms of business, YouTube isn’t making money. But I’d rather have the problem of a huge and growing number of visitors than trying to stay profitable with a shrinking audience.
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Interesting. Warning, Mild rant/speculation/non-fact-based statement: One more step in the movement for Google, Wal-Mart, and Starbucks to take over the world. When I went to China over the summer, I saw that a Starbucks had been built in the Forbidden City. I am sure the Emperors loved ther mochaiattos with cream, no milk, and a little extra sugar. Back to reality: Is Google building a multi-faceted monopoly? Dibs on Boardwalk.
Ryan Reeh
October 9, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Woah! You got it totally right, Tom.
David
October 9, 2006 at 4:57 pm
In fact, when I saw the story at nytimes.com, I thought to myself, holy cow I read this first on North by Northwestern.
David
October 9, 2006 at 4:58 pm
$1.65 billion. Holy mackerel.
Thor
October 10, 2006 at 9:13 am
Google scares me more and more. They know pretty much everything I do, from Gmail to Google Calendar to Google search for images and video… it’s really sick.
Tom Giratikanon
October 10, 2006 at 1:43 pm