Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion

[mcanerin]

Busy day for Google. First, they make 2 deals for music (and video) with Sony and WMG.

Now, an hour or so later, they have announced that they are acquiring YouTube for 1.65B in stock.

When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world's most popular services for video entertainment.

Sounds like someone is interested in video and sound

Ian

[evilgreenmonkey]

I personally don't see the point, they already have MacGyver on Google Video - What more do they want?



Rob

[David Wallace]

To keep Yahoo and MSN fingers off of it I suppose. Also capturing yet another web property to display AdWords?

Google Video hasn't really taken off anyway. Now they have a property that has become synonymous with user submitted videos.

[andrewgoodman]

Morale-wise, it's probably healthy at this time for Google to have a category it's winning in.

Sure, sure, they're winning in "local search," and search, and search advertising revenues.

But they want to win in this area, and this is a pretty decent way to get there fast.

As for Youtube continuing to operate independently... well of course, for now. Just like Flickr continued to operate independently, for awhile.

[g7submit]

I wonder if this move is not more of a chess-style act than the real business sense. Sometimes when someone already has a white Rolls Royce and still goes ahead to acquire a red one, you want to wonder: why?

Google already dominates the money-making arenas of the Internet. But I guess that this is more of a class act or statement to uncle BG that he was slow to act.

Can you imagine if Bill was the one who bought MySpace or YouTube? Just visualize or think about the implications of MSN's search results present in these online traffic oceans? Won't that have affected their online search income?

I hope it's not that uncle BG's business sense is cluttered with too many bugs from AdCenter? Or what do you think Google's action really is?

[andrewgoodman]

But being a leader in one phase of technology is no guarantee of future leadership, so innovation isn't really a luxury - new trends have to be studied.

I think at one time Lynx had the stranglehold on the text-based browser market

[Dan01]

Originally Posted by g7submit

I wonder if this move is not more of a chess-style act than the real business sense. Sometimes when someone already has a white Rolls Royce and still goes ahead to acquire a red one, you want to wonder: why?

Google already dominates the money-making arenas of the Internet. But I guess that this is more of a class act or statement to uncle BG that he was slow to act.

Can you imagine if Bill was the one who bought MySpace or YouTube? Just visualize or think about the implications of MSN's search results present in these online traffic oceans? Won't that have affected their online search income?

I hope it's not that uncle BG's business sense is cluttered with too many bugs from AdCenter? Or what do you think Google's action really is?

I remember when Time Warner merged with AOL. AOL was king of the hill for a short time, but soon lagged. YouTube accounts for 45% of the video right now, Google Video 11% and Yahoo about 6%. One year ago Yahoo was at 85%.

I am still not sure why YouTube was so popular. They did develop a method for publisher to put the video on their site. But anyone could have done that. Hurley and Chen say they tried to keep ads from their site, and they think that made it popular. If they are right, then what will happen when Google puts ads on the site or in the video? Will some new non-ad site become more popular??

Also, what about the copyright problems? NBC, CBS, etc had a hard time going after a couple guys in the garage. Now they can have their lawyers fire off letters to Google.

[Northwind]

I have to agree with most of these posts - I don't see the point. You have a cash rich company taking over a big pile of copyrighted material, we all know what that means.

I think right now they're anxious to build or pick up anything popular, whether its free wifi, ebay, free office tools, or 5 minute videos. I just hope when the dust settles and the market starts demanding more than click-throughs from 14yr olds, we'll have enough competition around to keep the search market alive and well.

NW,

[egain]

According to the article on BMM website, the purchase was based on its potential in terms of adsense.

[markov]

Its only to show the supremacy over search engines ! Yahoo and MSN should make other arrangements to fight back !

[Dan01]

I have been doing some thinking about this some more. A couple comments. Two things about Google.

1) They like things automated. They don't want reviewers sitting around. No editors. I am not sure how automated YouTube is or if people can slap porn up there.

2) They have had a lot of dealings with people that complained about copyright. Remember the books online thing they have. Publishers and writers really complained.

They must have had their lawyers think about this. Maybe the bean-counters evaluated it. They do have tons of money and need to do something with it.

[rockart]

Originally Posted by evilgreenmonkey

I personally don't see the point, they already have MacGyver on Google Video - What more do they want?



Rob

eliminate the competition? If you can't beat 'em buy 'em