Google just bought Youtube for $1.65 Bil

[greggh]

Do you think it was a smart buy, or as Mark Cuban has said, "Anyone that buys Youtube has to be a complete moron"?

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7b05306ED9-F56E-467C-BBA3-AFD9EB7335F8%7d&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/07/some-thoughts-on-youtube-and-google/

[bruenig]

stupid
Does this mean they are going to close off google video? I like the google video look more than youtube. Youtube is far too busy and ugly compared to google video. Now they are going to have to go through and shear the massive amount of videos that break copyright.

[mostwanted]

Well, even though Google has shown that advertising revenue can fund an infite number of free services, I choose to remain sceptical this time around. YouTube has operated with big financial losses until now, their bandwidth usage increases almost exponentially every day.

[mostwanted]

stupid
Does this mean they are going to close off google video? I like the google video look more than youtube. Youtube is far too busy and ugly compared to google video. Now they are going to have to go through and shear the massive amount of videos that break copyright.

They'll probably merge them into two services with the same backend... or something like that.

[greggh]

Mark Cuban just posted a follow-up...

I still think Google is crazy (http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/09/i-still-think-google-is-crazy/)

I think it was a very smart buy. It appears to me that Mark Cuban is too enamoured with traditional media and doesn't buy into the idea that the fundamental way that we consume media is going to radically change. I think he's wrong.

[prizrak]

Last I heard they were in negotiations. It makes sense for Google to do that. Remember that YouTube is the largest online video service. Google's own Video service got suprassed by YouTube quite easily. Also YouTube might be operating at a loss but it's 100% free, Google Video is not, they do have pay-for content.

[greggh]

I originally thought, "why not just clone Youtube, feature for feature", but then I remembered that Google doesn't have any employees that can code a decent user interface if their life depended on it. All they know how to do is maintain their tens of thousands of cheap servers. So I guess they had no choice but to buy what they are too incompetent to build... which is very smart.

[Kateikyoushi]

It was a really good sale, but I am not so sure that it was worth buying.
I watch films online and occasionally youtube as well, but I wonder if the investment worth it. They have to make money out of it and RIAA and it's friends are at the door...

[rfruth]

A very good move on Google's part, more eyeballs to sell advertising to !

[IYY]

Brilliant on Google's part. Unlike Youtube, Google can actually make money from this through ads. By owning both Google Video and YouTube, they pretty much have a monopoly on the online video ``market''.

[henriquemaia]

For more discussion, follow it here:

Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/09/217207) (slashdot)

[RAV TUX]

smart buy, next Google will probably gooble up MySpace?

[greggh]

smart buy, next Google will probably gooble up MySpace?

No chance on that. Myspace was just bought last year by Murdoch's NewsCorp for $560 Mil. Murdoch would not be looking to sell that anytime soon. Facebook is still in play though.

[RAV TUX]

No chance on that. Myspace was just bought last year by Murdoch's NewsCorp for $560 Mil. Murdoch would not be looking to sell that anytime soon. Facebook is still in play though.

I'm sure Mil. Murdoch would sale for the right price, and MySpace has the numbers that Google loves, it just makes ad sense.

[ice60]

i haven't read any of the links in this thread, but i read somewhere yesterday the youtube ads will bring in afew billion a year in about 5 years. youtube has over 100 million videos watched per day.

i've only ever watched lonelygirl15 on youtube :rolleyes: but i like google video. i watched two linux documentaries and one about the bermuda triangle there last night :mrgreen:

BTW, i don't know what the youtube GUI is like atm, but there's a nice firefox extension which automatically makes the video full screen, or near full screen.

[darkhatter]

google has well-paid people working for them, so I know they made a smart move.

[Omnios]

Hi this was on the news last night so I read up on this this morning and found a link.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=8111

The offer to buy it apperently was for about $1.6 billion which was stated to be the most Google has offered for anything.

Personally I think this could be a bad thing sort of like what happened to Mplayer multiplayer game site and might dissapear or be devalued because of similar service. I think Google has every intention to support and continue to offer YouTUbe service but from past similar purchases YouTube's Identity may be threatened.

What are your views on this?

[meng]

My view: ho hum, I'm kinda apathetic towards both Google and YouTube, so I don't really care one way or the other. (So why did I bother posting you ask? Just to represent all the others who don't really care.)

[chaosgeisterchen]

I assume that video.google.com will be merged with youtube...

[rfruth]

Shear brilliance on Google's part, all those new eyeballs viewing those advertisements :rolleyes:

[chaosgeisterchen]

Hmh.. who joins me in believing that the IT market will be soon war between Google and Microsoft?

[weatherman]

what's the story about mplayer's multiplayer game site?

[Omnios]

Hmh.. who joins me in believing that the IT market will be soon war between Google and Microsoft?

My personal opinion is Google is already winning when was the last time you did a M$ search.

[chaosgeisterchen]

I never did so far.. but I am talking about things like operating systems.

Goobuntu? A farther developed version of that could be the threat against Mircosoft from Google.

[man-man]

Arent Google already putting together a desktop - but online, so all their applications load through a browser

Although in that form it really couldnt come near to replacing an OS (none of the hardware management stuff + you have to have an OS already to use it) but they might be able to get a few people hooked on their online apps so that with a bit of expansion they could be a minor contender

[djsroknrol]

I bounce between both Google video and Youtube....frankly I'm looking forward to the enriched content the two of them would create. [-(

It was a smart move for sure....

[maniacmusician]

I don't think that youtube will infect google video...quite the opposite actually. I think that google will be able to organize youtube and make it better, and also use it to their advantage in terms of advertising as people mentioned earlier, and other things as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll do with it

[Gijith]

I'm sure Mil. Murdoch would sale for the right price, and MySpace has the numbers that Google loves, it just makes ad sense.

Google + Myspace seems like a great combo (I was shocked Google didn't try to outbid NewsCorp), but I can't see it happening. At least not while Murdoch is alive (tick tick tick). He rarely sells anything. Especially not something that's as potentially lucrative as a website that has #1 hits on the internet and a base of users that have spelled out what adverts they want to see.

[maniacmusician]

Google + Myspace seems like a great combo (I was shocked Google didn't try to outbid NewsCorp), but I can't see it happening. At least not while Murdoch is alive (tick tick tick). He rarely sells anything. Especially not something that's as potentially lucrative as a website that has #1 hits on the internet and a base of users that have spelled out what adverts they want to see.
I agree. Myspace has already been a huge source of revenue and advertising. Trends show that this is going to increase. They're getting more and more media on there. some free, some "samples" of commercially available media. they'll make a lot of money off of it