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Google Businesses The Internet

Google and YouTube Continue To Struggle With Details 52

Posted by Zonk from the everyone-has-got-to-be-your-best-friend dept.
An SFGate article looks at the still rocky road that Google and YouTube are traveling as they try to iron out after-merger details. Hanging in the air are things like the Viacom takedown request, competition from Joost, and deal-making with organizations like the NBA and BBC. They're also concerned about little things like, you know, making money. From the article: "Tensions [with IP holders] haven't reached lawsuit status -- yet. Such a fight could be long and costly, but with Google's backing, YouTube could afford it. And that may be why media companies have held back so far, [IP lawyer Lee] Bromberg and others said. Google and YouTube have something to gain from deal-making, too. For the company to make money from advertising -- and the potential is huge, with an estimated $70 billion to $80 billion spent in television advertising -- Google and YouTube need the premium videos. Because viewers are more likely to watch these clips than myriad user-generated ones, advertisers are willing to pay more for them. "
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Google and YouTube Continue To Struggle With Details More

Google and YouTube Continue To Struggle With Details

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  • The internet is for... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smeagols_ghost ( 644286 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @05:29AM (#18235320) Journal
    Porn.

    1) Spin off an "adult" section of YouTube.
    2) ???
    3) Profit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sinryc ( 834433 )
      You mean like Xtube.net or pornotube.com right?
    • Its funny that you should mention an adult section of YouTube. That's pretty much what "break.com" is, which I believe is owned by IAC/Interactive (Barry Diller). I don't know whether IAC has had success in monetizing that aspect of their business, but it does not seem to be in line with Google's target audience.

  • Competition from Joost? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vivaoporto ( 1064484 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @05:40AM (#18235378)
    Competition from Joost? There is no such thing, nobody knew (or knows) what Joost it, while YouTube already hit the mainstream media.

    The deal between Viacom and Joost is like when that beautiful cheerleader, after breaking up with the handsome quarterback, chases him and says "I'd rather to sleep with the first idiot that passes by me that going back to you". And picks up the first idiot that passes by her. And gives him a big sloppy kiss.

    That "first idiot" is Joost. Everybody knows that Viacom end up ironing a deal with Google, and that they will be back in bed soon, so, no need to give him false hope.

    • Joost is overhyped too early (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Since joost got so hyped up early .. when it actually comes out it'll be a downer. I don't think it's going to be a success because they're delaying launching the service.

      Of course when it fails everyone will say online TV is dead. And then Apple will do it right.

      Also, I dont see why Joost is so vehemently against user generated content .. they can always keep it separated and labelled on a separate channel.
      Will they allow linking to channels/tv show scenes from the web like youtube style?

    • Such a fight could be long and costly, but with Google's backing, YouTube could afford it.

      The article's notion of 'afford' is odd: just because Google (and therefore YouTube) has money doesn't mean they can afford to blow it on lawsuits. Youtube needs to increase in profitability by 1000 fold in order for Google to make any profit on it at all. Google cannot afford YouTube as it is today, let alone with huge lawsuits to deal with.

    • And I'm sure a lot of other people are going to find out the same thing. With my Vonage service, any peer-to-peer application results in poor sound quality thanks to the ridiculous upload speeds Comcast provides. And I'm sure it's just as bad using any other VoIP provider. I've had to use a cron job just to make sure BitTorrent doesn't gum up my phone service.

    • Competition from Joost? There is no such thing, nobody knew (or knows) what Joost it, while YouTube already hit the mainstream media.

      That's why they're doing this viral marketing piece for Slashdot.
  • Let's face it, the YT videos are usually of poor quality. So anything that would require good quality to be enjoyable will not really fly. Sound quality is ok, so it's no big surprise that a good deal of YT videos deal with some kind of music video (either the video itself, some concert bootleg, some moron lip syncing etc) or some speech, where it doesn't matter too much what the guy looks like as long as you can make out the key features or if applicable his visual material.

    I doubt that many would want to

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by subsonic ( 173806 )
      yes, quality is comparatively low to what you could get if you actually paid for content. And it still lags behind TV quality (though that doesn't stop channels from airing web videos as genuine content with its own merit).
      Picture quality is not, in and of itself, the real issue. There are some very interesting multi-part videos (off the top of my head: Cobbler and the Thief "director's cut") that, yes they take a while to view and the quality is low, but it is still the only place where you'll find that

    • I've watched Youtube videos that were upwards of an 1.5 hours long. Mostly they're lectures that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Also, I've downloaded several videos from Google Video to view on my iPod. Even blown up on my 32" TV they're perfectly adequate for communicating the message.

    • YT videos are usually of poor quality.

      There are numerous ways youtube can actually generate a profit with this one little fact. Off the top of my head:

      1) Offer higher-quality video services to paying viewers.
      2) Offer higher-quality video services to paying uploaders.
      3) Offer higher-quality video services on a per-video basis to uploaders.

      Google is primarily a search company who makes money on advertisements based on search. Text ads based on video content based on description and tags is a start, but tagging has to be much better before this p

  • no subject (Score:3, Interesting)

    by UnixSphere ( 820423 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @06:29AM (#18235588)
    an adult section on youtube is unrealistic and clashes with google's understanding that nobody likes to pay for things online. and without a credit card to verify someone's age for porn, it's not going to happen.

    google/youtube just simply needs to get more tv networks and whatnot onboard. But the deal maker is to get ALL music videos online, not just current "hip" ones that the kids are watching today but as many as possible.

    Replays of old tv shows would be great, even current tv shows could make a deal that youtube could have their shows a week or two later, kind of the same setup sendmail has, actual tv viewers get the latest, but computer tv viewers have to wait. So tv networks don't lose their audience if they decide to go online because the stuff online wouldn't be the latest episodes.

  • They're still thinking in the old paradigm. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ViX44 ( 893232 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @06:56AM (#18235676)
    "Because viewers are more likely to watch these clips than myriad user-generated ones, advertisers are willing to pay more for them."

    Isn't the myriad the point? YOUtube, and not THEIRtube? It appears to me this is an attempt to finally define the internet's replacement for television, since past attempts to hybridize (WebTV, for example) have failed to become accepted as widely as the entertainment industry would like.

    If They were paying attention, they would realize that you need to advertise evenly. It doesn't matter if someone's watching the second episode of Who's the Boss or three fat kids on a webcam lip-syncing to The Safety Dance, someone is watching a video, give them an ad. Selling ads specifically on a given video is TV-era thinking. This is the mighty internet tube system, it doesn't work the same way.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by daigu ( 111684 )

      The point of advertising is to influence someone to buy a product. There was a day in television advertising when they did what you are proposing - when there were three networks. Even then you did audience segmentation by the type of audience a particular television show had and showed ads that might be of interest to that audience. There is a reason "soap operas" are called soap operas and TV was the center piece of so-called mass media. You are right, this is a different approach, but you are essentially

    • Selling ads specifically on a given video is TV-era thinking. This is the mighty internet tube system, it doesn't work the same way.

      Yeah, in the internet era, you blow a bunch of money giving a free video-hosting service to teens and young adults that they use to do share vids with their friends and have no clue how you intend to profit.

      Seriously, how long until Google has to cut off this gangrenous arm?

      Oh, by the way, I think the counterpart to YouTube is TheyTube, not TheirTube.
      • Oh, by the way, I think the counterpart to YouTube is TheyTube, not TheirTube.

        In as much as I appreciate you're comment, I suspect the proper way to spell that service would be They'reTube.

    • Isn't the myriad the point? YOUtube, and not THEIRtube?

      No, this is business. Maybe YOUtube used to be the point, but no longer -- I think perhaps "MYtube full o' money" has been the point all along.

      Selling ads specifically on a given video is TV-era thinking. This is the mighty internet tube system, it doesn't work the same way.

      How so? This isn't about the internet "routing around" videos with ads appended -- this is about getting advertisers to pay Google top dollar for getting their content out there.

  • Such is the end of cool things... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by okinawa_hdr ( 1062664 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @07:01AM (#18235692) Homepage
    ...when bean counters get their hands on something, and make it all about the money.
  • "because viewers are more likely to watch these clips than myriad user-generated ones, advertisers are willing to pay more for them"

    Thats a a load of bullshit. If YouTube does that, it isn't YouTube anymore. remember,"broadcast yourself". Whoever this analyst is, either he is paid by those studios or doesn't understand the point of YouTube. Its FUD against YouTube, which is a excellent thing in itself(YouTube not the FUD),whether you like it or not.

    I don't know from where all those statistcs people pull tha

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gnufied ( 942531 )
      Somebody already pointed out, YouTube is in fact, not the right tool to watch movies and series online. it would suck, that way anyways.
  • Companies like Google/YouTube and Apple are in the unique position of having the ear of both media companies and, potentially, lawmakers. Google has sufficient credibility, cash (ie. lobbying), and clout (image / exposure / visibility) to diminish the control of IP hogs like media companies. It will take some epic battles to make inroads in freeing the consumer to be able to copy his/her own DVDs and downloaded music any number of times they wish. It's shaping up to be an interesting year...
  • I'm going to bring to the attention this paragraph from the article, "No such deal exists with YouTube. But it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that, if Google's experiment goes well, YouTube might adopt a similar model. For now, [i]YouTube and the NBA have agreed to share advertising that runs alongside [/i]the NBA clips and [i]videos of fans showing off their best basketball moves.[/i]" And doesn't the highlighted section alarm you?

  • No, they don't (Score:3, Insightful)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @09:13AM (#18236282) Homepage Journal
    Google and YouTube need the premium videos.

    The world in general needs to break the addictive, destructive relationship with the "premium content" providers. Google would do the public a far greater service if it simply put ads in the user-made vids, (assuming it absolutely has to, of course) and avoided forming any type of relationship with big media entirely.

    The film companies and record labels need to be sent a message that they cannot indefinitely push the viewing public around, bully them, sue them, and otherwise treat them like cattle, without there being deeply negative consequences for them. If someone becomes willing to do this, big media might start treating people a bit better.
  • Surely dailymotion.com is where most people choose to place their "Big Media" clips these days? For now it is rendered invisible to corporate legislators due to:

    1. having an unfortunate name that conjurs scatalogical images.
    2. being partly in some kind of 'code' language known as "French"
    3. You probably couldn't sue them for that much
  • It's only really low bandwidth, bad quality. places like the newer upstart veoh allow you to download a higher resolution version of the video you watched.

    That is where they need to go. they compress the youtube content so hard even incredibly good looking videos end up looking crappy on youtube. at least others are offering higher quality options.

    and yes, most people dont care if their video content get's downloaded as can be seen with the amount of content on veoh.

  • I love the "babe in the woods" perspective... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday March 05, 2007 @12:29PM (#18238350)
    I love the "babe in the woods" perspective I often see on Slashdot.

    Because viewers are more likely to watch these clips than myriad user-generated ones, advertisers are willing to pay more for them.


    No shit - you're saying that professionals in the TV and movie industries generally crank out better stuff that amateurs? And you're wondering why the companies that bankrolled the professionals so they could sell advertising inserted into the professionals' final product are getting annoyed that a competing company is copying the content and putting its own advertising on it? If that last bit's a mystery to you, I'm not sure I can help.

    Generally, I think of YouTube as the next generation of "America's Funniest Home Videos". Entertaining? A little. $X billion entertaining? Dunno. Going to replace my viewing of DVDs and a handful of TV shows on cable? No.

    This is where I get worried about where Google is headed. At its core, it's not really a tech company; it's a media and advertising company. Its "consumer product" is a search engine and now YouTube, but it doesn't really have any "premium content" or service that serves a unique need or performs it in a unique manner.
  • They kill Youtube through red tape, and then Google Video rises like the Phoenix?

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