The big move: Google bids 1.6 Billion to buy YouTube.com!

DeluxeNames

I just saw it reported on TV. I have not seen it online yet (if you find a confirmation article online, please post it):

Google will bid 1.6 Billion in effort to buy YouTube.com! (Being now reported on the Fox News network).

As you know, since August, YouTube has moved into the top 50 website properties based on the number of people that visit according to the recognized authority, the Comsocre Networks.
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=982

CannonBallGuy

Article: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/06/business/google.php

DeluxeNames

CannonBallGuy wrote: »

Article: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/06/business/google.php

Thanks for finding that CBG

Nuvo

If it's true (YouTube has denied rumours of possible sales to other media companies), it would be a good move for both companies as YouTube would gain the money and technological power from Google while Google would gain that which they have been trying to get, but simply haven't been able to... Online movie services.

Google's own service, Google Video, has had a poor run thus far as although it may be up to the task, YouTube got in there and attracted users first and isn't caught up with commercial content.
If Google were to aquire YouTube, I'd think that they would roll Google Video's commercial clips services into YouTube rather than destroying the more established site that has better features.

DeluxeNames

Nuvo wrote: »

If it's true (YouTube has denied rumours of possible sales to other media companies), it would be a good move for both companies as YouTube would gain the money and technological power from Google while Google would gain that which they have been trying to get, but simply haven't been able to... Online movie services.
Google's own service, Google Video, has had a poor run thus far as although it may be up to the task, YouTube got in there and attracted users first and isn't caught up with commercial content.
If Google were to aquire YouTube, I'd think that they would roll Google Video's commercial clips services into YouTube rather than destroying the more established site that has better features.

Exactly! Google would be that much stonger versus Microsoft if that happened so I hope it goes through.

I cheer on Google because I think they are the only one that can challenge Microsoft's near monopolistic tendencies. I'm not anti-microsoft but we need choice in the marketplace.

Nuvo

YouTube is just easier to use than Google Video.
This is mainly down to YouTube having the better layout while Google Video has the main movie stream and a side menu for getting to other content.
The problem is that Google Video throws everything in that tiny side menu from nav links to descriptions and even comments, leading to a less accessable experience.
With YouTube, it's set out much more logically and you don't have to click on JavaScript links to get to things like comments.

Google Video does have commercial content, downloading for various media devices (PC, Mac, PSP and so on, the last time I looked) and a bigger display area, which would only make YouTube a better site than it already is.
Google's servers also seem to be a fair bit faster as their movie content often loads faster and is better in terms of image quality, but doesn't have the nice links when the movie ends like YouTube has.

The good thing about both of these services is that unlike sites like NewGrounds, they haven't made their content reliant on Flash 8 and above, which means people who can't use Flash 8 or 9 can still use their sites.
Flash isn't as far gone under Linux \ non-Mac BSD as it is under Windows and OS X and some portable devices don't have full Flash support (Flash Lite is used on the PSP), so making content available to those users is a nice feature.

Nuvo

Sorry to double post, but I found out some more stuff about this today.
Indeed, newspaper reports say that Google has offered something in the region of ?800million for YouTube, which is a lot more in dollars.
YouTube would benefit from this as, reportedly, YouTube is costing nearly ?1million a month to run.
Google has also begun advertising through MySpace.

A possible merger of Google Video and YouTube would give Google the edge needed to break into the multimedia sector which is currently dominated by the likes of Apple and Napster.
Basically, if you take YouTube and add a few of Google Video's features (downloads and premium content), you get a web based media service which can act as a kind of iTunes for TV.

Think of it this way:
Bobby is a fan of House \ Simpsons \ some other popular TV show, but misses episode 93 on Five \ Sky One \ whatever, so he hops onto YouTube (a Google service at this point) and searches for the episode he missed.
Now, Bobby can either watch a lower quality version of said show, or he can choose to purchase it, download it and watch it in all it's glory... Perhapse even in HD since SVGA offers the same image quality as 720p or 1080i (or better in some cases).
Ok, so what's to stop Bobby just watching the lesser version?
Well, that would be a licencing issue (and you should note YouTube's recent licencing for music video's).
Once you've got an established service which people trust and use (oh come on, YouTube and Google are two of the biggest names online right now), you could expand into music and other things.
Best of all is that since such a thing is web based, but built with AJAXified interfaces (Google Mail anyone?), it works on pretty much any OS and doesn't turn into refresh hell.

Granted, something like that would take some doing and it's probably not a concept that would kill iTunes, but it offers a good alternative to people who can't use iTunes style systems, or simply don't want to go to the trouble of installing clients and such.

Google already has a network wide user system (you sign up for Google Mail and can use that account for their other services) and they obviously have the staff and resources to make it possible.

DeluxeNames

Thanks for this update Nuvo. If you have it, could you post the URL for this Indeed article?

I'm excited for what Google can do with YouTube. Your right Nuvo, imagine an iTunes for movies! I like it.

I usually don't see the point when big money companies buy out small inovative sites when it's so much cheaper to compete with a site by copying the sites concept. However, in this case, Google did try competing by copying YouTube's concept and it didn't work. In this case I think Google is smart to buy YouTube.

I wish I had bought the domain uTube.com before YouTube.com became so big, lol

xPureNLx

Hmm, seems to me big companies become larger, small ones stay small and even become smaller. The difference between them will grow harder and harder, so the monopoly in different catagories will grow as well (MS in OS, Google in Searching and stuff etc.)

My 2 cents ^^

Nuvo

The article was published in a free UK newspaper called Metro, so posting it up on here wouldn't be possible.

Searching is only one portion of Google's range these days.
Google's services include rich text editors, blogging, news, price comparisons, email, movie sharing, instant messaging, user groups, mapping, Q&A, photo sharing, web directories, translation, conversion, feed reading, site building and desktop hardware.
If they catch on to smaller things like Googiespell, they could have some nice little site add-on's as well (Googiespell is a JavaScript lib for using the spell checker features of Google Mail on your own sites, though this is probably against Google's TOS).

xPureNLx

Interesting reply Nuvo, however I do think google's primary target still is their search engine. They keep improving and renewing it, like their Ajax-based search system...

Okay, they improve their other services as well, but it's al related to their search engine...