Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion 424
Over 30 readers wrote about Google's purchase of YouTube today for $1.65 Billion, as rumored last week. The all-stock transaction is the single largest purchase in the company's 8-year history. The move follows on the heels of Google's convincing Sony and Warner Music to put music videos online for free. Reportedly, YouTube will retain its brand and all its 67 employees, including co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
So Google is going to become... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, don't you know (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So Google is going to become... (Score:4, Funny)
Strangely enough, though, they're still in beta.
Re:So Google is going to become... (Score:5, Funny)
eww.
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Goobe.
You heard it here first.
Re:So Google is going to become... (Score:5, Funny)
This shit is funny. GooTube in Hindi literary means asshole.
Goo --> Shit
Tube --> Tube
GooTube --> Tube from where you shit
Sorry, I am drunk on monday afternoon
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Whoa, what the hell was that?"
Don't worry, just another chunk of my respect for Slashdot mods breaking off, floating away into the great abyss.
Outsourcing? (Score:5, Funny)
A discussion other people just had (Score:5, Informative)
a. the users and more importantly
b. the usage pattern of these users
While google has been picking up little things here and there, essentially this is google's first real "social networking" site that they have purchased. I say it in quotes because youtube isn't really a social networking site, but there are certainly aspects of it that cannot be denied.
I say youtube lucked out and google really made a stupid purchase, it appears to me like it was an attrition attempt against the competition in internet space (yahoo? microsoft? myspace? - whoever they think their competition is atm, because I can't tell). I don't know.. I'm curious to see where this goes. Google definately wants to go into the multimedia distribution area, that's for sure. How they go about doing it, we'll have to see..
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Are you a script? If so you should be changed to reply coherently to replies in your thread, that would be more entertaining. Simply copying posts is a bit dull don't you think?
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I wouldn't say the purchase of Youtube is stupid, rather the purchase of Youtube for $1.65 Billion. Considering the bandwidth costs, I honestly don't think that ad revenue is going to cut it. No, I beleive they bought Youtube simply becuase they didn't want anybody else grabbibg it first. As of right now Youtube is money going down the drain and while th
Re:A discussion other people just had (Score:5, Funny)
YouTube not evil! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:YouTube not evil! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more than happy with that. At least now Youtube will have Google Adsense ads rather than Myspaces "epileptic punch the monkey you win a frigging iPod PS3 viagra sweepstakes" flash banner ads with 400 double click pop ups and unders.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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So why should we have to? That's like putting mercury in the water supply and blaming everyone for not having water filters and chelation therapy handy.
Re:YouTube not evil! (Score:4, Insightful)
Use tactful, creative, intelligent ads that are non-intrusive and I won't be blocking / skipping them.
I was watching a football game this sunday and saw an ad for a car that was done up like a drug ad - guy who is normally clostraphobic in small cars finds the new car roomy enough - at the end he goes into a field of wildflowers with a puppy and the model name of the car is shown with the MPG shown in small print much like drugs show the dosage. It was whitty, creative, and not obnoxious at all. I actually backed it up with Tivo and showed it to my wife who also got a kick out of it.
cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:cool (Score:5, Informative)
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They're still basically running two sites in parallel and it's a bit of a mess, but at least you can generally post (although you have to register for a google account to post to a 'beta' blog, which many are unwilling to do).
Hmmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Blockquoth the AC:
That's one possible outcome. Another is that Google, already treading a very fine line with several of its existing offerings, has just taken a step too far and is about to be slapped down hard.
If I were a betting man, I would actually bet against Google on this one. Admittedly, that is partly because I don't like the way they've started taking liberties with others' work and assuming something is OK as long as they're the guys doing it. But mainly, it's objective analysis: Google have some good products, but they have little that's unique, and none of their big revenue generators has a great barrier to entry. They're currently target number one for several other big tech firms, and fighting on all fronts, and I'm sure Sun Tzu had something to say about the wisdom of that approach.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Its on the leading edge of internet progress.
Internet, is, 'people'.
Noone can fight against people. Google owning youtube will be a catalyst factor in getting the dinasours realize that we are living in a new world, and pushing the whole WORLD's people for anything outdated is folly at best.
This will remove one of the 2-3 factors hampering the 'new age' if you will.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you consider all I just posted to be weak defense, the kicker begins on page 11: Limitation for Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the Direction of Users. Google meets all three requirements:
And people are forgetting deals already in place (Score:3, Informative)
"As its negotiations with Google neared a conclusion, YouTube announced partnerships with Universal Music Group, CBS Corporation and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Those alliances followed a similar arrangement announced last month with Warner Music Group"
So the copyright aspect is frankly a moot point, Google is also promising to share the proceeds of any future revenue with video owners, that will fence off most other challenges.
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I'm not disputing the US DMCA provisions here; I don't know enough US law to know what the situation is for sure. However, much of the world does not have such provision, and frankly, I'm not sure the US has a terribly credible position on this one, since they're effectively saying "go ahead and infringe until you're told not to, and then have no penalty as long as you stop when you're caught". There are a lot more copyright holders in the world than Big Media, and a lot of the special interest producers/di
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You mean Google's images, cache, and even video doesn't run into the same problems?
I think it is safe to safe Google has enough IP lawyers and knowhow to take care of any problems they run into.
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Google is essentially counting on the same thing YouTube has been all along--a legal safe harbor provision. YouTube's business model (such as it is) doesn't rely on copyright infringement,* so as long as Google i
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
And more importantly, now there is someone to sue. Someone with lots and lots of money, so all those $200K per infringement civil awards actually have a chance of being paid out. Watch for Hollywood to their absolute damndest to take Google's IPO money the same way the RIAA took mp3.com's $200M of IPO cash.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Prediction-the-first: this will be settled out-of-court, and along the lines of a statutory license.
Prediction-the-second: you will watch GoogleTV, and the copyright holders will love you for it.
Prediction-the-third: in the face of TiVo-enabled departures from a supportable advertising model, traditional TV broadcasting will end up losing out since Google will be able to provide exact viewer measurements and demographics and be able to target the most coveted consumer groups.
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1. Buy Youtube
2. ????
3. Profit
Just how can they make a profit from youtube? That's an awful lot of advertising google are going to need to sell to recoup their investment.
Could this be a sign of a new
Shitdrummer.
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So ungoogle (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is jumping the shark.
Re:So ungoogle (Score:4, Informative)
If I understood the situation correctly, Google bought YouTube - among other things - to prevent others from buying it and gaining (more) advantage in the field.
Furthermore, it is not the first product they've bought either.
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They bought a money pit because their stock went up 2% on news they might buy it. After buying it they're going to go up another 4% or so thus paying for itself. Since 1.65 billion is worth 1.5% of the company, gaining 5% or so means they just made 3.5%. This is short term though.
In the end I think they get hosed but whatever.
Re:So ungoogle (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google bought a satellite mapping company, an online spreadsheet program, an online word processing program, and a photo management program. It looks like they bought Blogger too. They might have bought SketchUp. The weird thing is that Google didn't already have a service or program for most of the other purchases, this time they already had their Video service but bought YouTube anyway. I think that's a more clear way of
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So I take it you're one of those people who think Google made Google Earth (formely Keyhole) and Picasa from scratch?
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Regardless, they got totally ripped off and I'm sure this isn't the last in their path for world monopoli.....I mean domination.
It does seem out of step for them to do this, however.
1.65 bil.....man, that's a lot of scratch for a Website that's a money pit in terms of (s
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Also google has a whole host of web acquisitions in its pocket like Writely and Picasa.
It's kind of understandable that people still see google as an indexing service, not a content service, but this is changing.
The only thing I am not looking
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To put it more plainly, YouTube is to Google what AOL is to Timw-Warner.
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Ill Go Ahead and Say it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ill Go Ahead and Say it (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone learned from the last time, obviously the stock market is untrustworthy.
If they're looking to court respectability.. (Score:2)
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At that rate, does google want a game company? (Score:5, Funny)
Give me a call, or just drop me an email guys. That figure is negotiable too.
Integration with Google Video? (Score:5, Insightful)
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IMHO that was an example of why Google *should* integrate. Google Analytics' flash map absolutely blows. It's basically worthless unless you are looking at the world overview. The second you want to see anything close up it's shit and you can't navigate it very well.
I'd give anything for them to make that section of Analytics more useful as
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I wasn't necessarily saying that they should or shouldn't have used the Google Maps API, just giving an example of where, from a strictly technological point of view, it would have made sense to integrate but they chose not to integrate for whatever reason. I'm guessing that all of the Urchin users that were switched over to Google Analytics have an expectation as to how that feature works and Google wanted to be cautious about changing a feature ou
Has to be said (Score:2, Funny)
Good buy for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Google makes money through advertisement. Currently simple text banner ads. But a quick look at other sites will show you a growing interest in video ads. YouTube has a lot of visitors, and if Google plays this correctly they can make more advertisement dollars.
Secondly, YouTube signed some nice contracts with the likes of CBS and two music labels.
Re:Good buy for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Golden Google (Score:5, Interesting)
None of which explains why Google thinks YouTube is worth $1.65 Billion. There are a lot of big profitable high-tech companies that aren't worth that much. Selling text ads? They don't need to buy the company to do that. Selling video ads? They have their own video technology.
Not that it matters. Google can spend its money its money the way it wants, because it has more than it knows what to do with, and because its stockholders are shut out of corporate decision making. So it can buy companies that have no hope of contributing to the bottom line (Picassa, Outride, lots of blogging and social networking providers). It can hire lots of talented people. (And not so talented. Some of the people who've gone there recently are better at self-hype than actually making stuff.) And it can do this without any concern about making money.
Why is this bad? Because you have a lot of money, resources, and talent being used to subsidize what amounts to high-tech masturbation. Google gets bigger and bigger, and yet they release very few new products. And the products they do release stay in beta mode forever.
And please, don't try to tell me that "beta" is just a marketing or legal gimmick. Products like gmail, Google Groups, and Google Maps have lots of cool features, sure. But they're unpolished, inconsistently implemented, and very poorly documented. But most of all, they lack the boring little features that separate a toy project from a a real product.
Financially, Google is big success. But when it comes to pushing technological progress, they're a ship without a rudder. A very fancy ship, mind you, with free gourmet meals for the crew, and lots of conveniences and gadgets. But where is ship going. Nobody seems to know.
And how much more... (Score:2)
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Deep pockets (Score:2)
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Except for the fact that Google's deep pockets are full of fiber. Remember, they've been buying up dark fiber for years; all they have to do is light it up, and they could cut down a lot of their transit on other networks. The threat of that, and the resulting lost revenue, ought to be enough to keep ISPs in line.
There goes 50% of Youtube content (Score:4, Interesting)
True, Warner has embraced it's content for ad revenue, but I'm sure Youtube was treading on a thin edge, and would've had their a55es sued sooner or later.
This will just expedite the inevitable, and I expect Google to quickly unpublish most (C) content to save their a55es. That'll probably reduce it to what Google Videos is right now, fun, but with very limited content.
Goodbye, Youtube, it was a good run while it lasted.
Deep Pockets (TM) invite lawsuits ~GillBates (2006)
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I still feel, though, that deep pockets invite better deals
Explain to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to see some serious commentary on this, and not just the assumption that youtube voilates copyright. I spend probably and hour a week watching stuff on youtube, and I'm sure over 95% of what I see does NOT violate any copyrights.
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Re:Explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
The length of a clip is not the only thing that matters in claiming fair use: also important is the importance of the clip in regard to the entire work, whether the original work is more factual or more creative, and what effect the use of the clip will have on the saleability of the work as a whole. It actually cannot be known whether using a copyrighted material falls under fair use until one is sued over that material and goes to court for it, as fair use is up to a court to decide.
Also, even if the clips' being posted on YouTube violates copyright law, YouTube likely isn't liable for first-party violation, as they did not make the copies themselves, and they might not be liable for 2nd or 3rd party copyright violation if they can prove that they did not market YouTube as a place for copyrighted works to be posted by those who do not hold the copyright, and if they can show that they took appropriate measures to remove materials in violation of copyright.
However, it is best to assume that any material you see on YouTube that was not posted by the author IS in violation of copyright, as there have been no rulings in this regard, and unless an author specifically gives up his copyright or publishes the works under an open license (which still lets him retain copyright, but lets others use and distribute the work as well), then he has the right to sue for infringement, and YouTube will at very least be required to take the work down if they cannot prove fair use or de minimus (least possible to make a point) use of the materials, or that the work was in the public domain.
So, how are you so sure that the content does not violate the authors' copyrights?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whereas at least half of the stuff I've seen on YouTube and the like blatantly violates copyright (for example, because it's a complete copy of a special interest DVD), and a lot more is infringing on technicalities (for example, because it's video from a dance competit
1.65 billyun. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why stick with a company that has a potentially uncertain future, when you can go and start doing whatever you want (founding various cool companies that might be even better), or simply go do charity work.
Re:1.65 billyun. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1.65 billyun. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyhow, they can't just sell the stock and run. They'll have to wait some specific amount of time before being able to sell.
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Because the terms of the purchase almost certainly included clauses such as the stock not being tradable for 5 years, and that the employees agreed to remain for 3 years or such.
LetterRip
Why did YouTube take the lead? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's at least part of the answer.
Ouch Slashdot. $1.65 Billion. Ouch.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why did YouTube take the lead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good idea? Bad idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of us concluded that it was mostly going to be:
a. the users and more importantly
b. the usage pattern of these users
While google has been picking up little things here and there, essentially this is google's first real "social networking" site that they have purchased. I say it in qu
google (Score:5, Funny)
Too, I wonder how google will integrate the two.
implausibly stupid? (Score:2, Interesting)
Think of the advertising, software, and video servers they could have bought with that money.
If I were a google stockholder I'd be a) furious and b) selling. This really makes google look like they're losing their way.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You've seen that Simpson's where Bart works for a dotcom, right? You know, how the stock is worth toilet paper? That's somewhat close to the view from the inside when making deals using stock. It's like free money to
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Not so much, because it's not real money; they are paying in GOOG stock, which according to many people, it's overvalued.
Lawsuit in 3...2...1... (Score:2)
-Rick
YouTubes been googled. (Score:2)
For the majority of the little videos of skaters and stuff that are not advertising supported all Google needs is a universal micropayment system going in or an escrow account system going out to store payments until a threshold payment-unit is reached. And if you could use your standard bank debit card
$1.65 billion IN STOCK (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, that's alot.. (Score:2)
Nice deal!
Too bad every IP lawyer in the US just got a call that the deep pockets took the bait, and will be working full time suing Google for months.
At least Google's search engine works (Score:2)
Neither Javascript nor Flash are required to show videos (all you have to do, is link to a .mpg) but they're required by YouTube to show a video. Lame.
Perhaps Google will be fixing this?
Nuclear Launch Detected (Score:2)
It does not even matter if there are pending lawsuits against YouTube or Google. They'll find ever means to fight the suits or settle.
I'm in shock the venture capitalist company didn't try to intervene when knowing their competitor was going to purchase their VC investment.
Online + Video + TV + Advertisements + $400/stock company = Nuclear Launch Detected
Google made money on this (Score:5, Insightful)
Long term it might not turn out that way, but annually this is great.
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More information (Score:3, Informative)
Most of it is about how each (youtube and google) will contribute to each other. They also talk a bit about financials; why google used stocks instead of cash, what youtube's revenue is, etc. Long webcast, but informative.
"Google video will not go away, ever." - direct quote from the webcast. The only integration the talk about it about google search in youtube but do say they plan to integrate more.
"Stupid?" Please justify. (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you just say "this is stupid" without any analysis of the future earnings of these businesses, you are adding nothing to the discussion.
Consider the following: Google is paying approx. 3.85 million shares of Google for YouTube. What is the value of those shares? Probably less than you think. What kind of competitive advantage does google have to justify such a high P/E ratio? They have the smartest technical people in the valley, and a great culture, those have to be worth something. But I'd argue that thy aren't worth $430 a share. What happens to google.com's traffic once people start using MSN search by default in the IE7 search box? Well, I can't tell you exactly what will happen, but I've got a decent guess. It'll PROBABLY GO DOWN, at least the growth rate. Does this sound like a company that is worth 62 times earnings ($130b by market value)?
I'd argue that if there's a bubble here, it's probably in the price of Google, not the price of YouTube. These things are hard to predict because you don't know exactly how the technology, and the underlying social dynamics of the users, will play out. And yes, the legal issues are thorny and I don't feel qualified to analyze those (though I'm sure Google's lawyers are more than qualified to). But i'd argue that Google ought to be making MORE acquisitons with its stock, not fewer.
Google The Acquisitor? (Score:3, Interesting)
goldmine (Score:3, Interesting)
This is going to explode in the next years. Consumers are already able to build their own program and contribute to it. User feedback of millions of people is automatic and be valuable for content providers. The web allows to monitor exactly when and what people see and when to target which group with advertisement. It will be no problem to milk this new medium. It will also be fantastic for research of all kind. Companies, political parties etc which are able to harvest from a large amount of data and even pay for that. It will be the key for political power too.
It will a gold mine. 1.65 billion now is nothing. Lawsuits will be coming but this will come from the losers of the game and dropping those will not matter anyway. Let them protect their content so that nobody will watch it any more. Being "in the show" will be the main goal in this new game. It might even happen that companies pay for what one calls "copyright infringement" today They will finally realize that spreading the content is more important than to disappear in the oblivious.
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Re:All i ask for is: (Score:5, Funny)
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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39
It is highly likely that Akamai actually "owns" the internet content distribution backbone you describe.
Re:WHOa (Score:4, Funny)
Re: HAVE? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The languages you name are not a result of "'mistakes' in Latin." What we know as Spanish, for example, is certainly heavily influenced by Latin. But it is not a simple derivative of Latin that appeared because people couldn't remember their declensions. Rather, Latin mixed with existing indigenous languages (which were in turn based on mixes of other, earlier languages such as Celtic). Then there