Google buys Youtube
Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:15 pm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/09/technol ... tube_deal/
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Google, the Internet's leading search engine, announced Monday that it is buying popular online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.
YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, has quickly become the most well-known of several online video sites. More than 100 million videos, many of which are short videos created by the site's users, are downloaded a day on the site.
According to Internet research firm Hitwise, YouTube has about a 46 percent share of the online video market.
For Google, the purchase of YouTube gives the company the ability to tap into the potentially lucrative online video and social networking markets. Some analysts have criticized Google for relying too much on advertising tied to keyword searches.
The combination of Google and YouTube could further strengthen Google's dominance in online advertising, giving it an edge over rivals such as Yahoo! , Microsoft's MSN and News Corp, which owns the social networking site MySpace. Some analysts said Monday that Yahoo, Microsoft and News Corp. also had probably expressed interest in buying YouTube.
In a statement, Google said that YouTube will operate as an independent unit of Google once the deal closes and will retain the YouTube brand name. The companies added that no YouTube workers will lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition and that Google will maintain its own online video business.
Clayton Moran, an analyst with Stanford Group, said after the deal was announced that Google was paying a rich price for YouTube. But he said Google needed to do something to become more competitive with MySpace, which currently ranks in second place in online video market share.
"My sense is that Google is paying a full price considering that YouTube is still unproven in regards to its revenue potential. But considering the success of MySpace it was clearly worthwhile for Google to take this step," Moran said.
Reports of a deal first began to circulate on Friday. Shares of Google rose about 2 percent on the Nasdaq Monday after posting a similar gain on Friday. The stock dipped slightly in after hours trading.
Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:23 pm
Life as we know it is over.
Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:30 pm
o.O
Oh hell yeah.
Although, it seems a bit odd seeing as how Google has Google Video/
Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:18 pm
I should hope there won't be any noticeable changes- otherwise I'm fine with this. What I'm not exactly fine with is all the deals YouTube and networks like NBC and CBS are making. Sure, the networks get to post small clips of shows, but I wish they would just chill with their clips being spread around (why should they care? It's free publicity!), cause those deals seriously limit the number of clips that can be posted.
Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:34 pm
Meh. Just... meh. Couldn't they leave it alone?
Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:50 pm
Yoshi wrote:I should hope there won't be any noticeable changes- otherwise I'm fine with this. What I'm not exactly fine with is all the deals YouTube and networks like NBC and CBS are making. Sure, the networks get to post small clips of shows, but I wish they would just chill with their clips being spread around (why should they care? It's free publicity!), cause those deals seriously limit the number of clips that can be posted.
Well, from a few articles I've read, two of the main changes will be (1) Google Ads (so they can actually make money from the site) and (2) better organization, because apparently the current YouTube is an organizational disaster. This also means they're going to use Google Search.
And the thing with the networks' shows being spread around, they don't like it because it cuts down on the amount of money they make.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:06 am
I hate google with it's useless search engine and ads EVERYWHERE. If I had a billion dollars, I would build a city of Lego instead.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:54 am
I like Google. You think I'd feel loyal to the Myspace guys, seeing as a particularly random Myspace bulletin directly led to me getting a boyfriend, but I'm a Google fan. So what's good for Google is good for America, America being me.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:53 am
Because Google Video wasn't enough, right?
Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:03 pm
Moongewl wrote:I like Google. You think I'd feel loyal to the Myspace guys, seeing as a particularly random Myspace bulletin directly led to me getting a boyfriend, but I'm a Google fan. So what's good for Google is good for America, America being me.
Ummm. What?
Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:34 pm
Okay everyone, america is moongewl, so be nice to her, she's a super power ^_^
Some silly article said Myspace would be worth $15 billion dollars (on the BBC website).
Thats alot of money. Where does money like that come from? how can it be worth that much?
Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:14 pm
zorg wrote:Some silly article said Myspace would be worth $15 billion dollars (on the BBC website).
Thats alot of money. Where does money like that come from? how can it be worth that much?
It's because MySpace (and all the other social networking sites) are a new fad, so they've become extremely popular, and there's more potential for them to grow.
But, then again, since these sites are a fad, and fads go away, they won't last for another 5-10 years. Not only are they a fad, but their target audience is the teenage group, which means they'll lose interest.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:34 pm
Yep. As I suspected, Google is slowly taking over the world. Unless they all of a sudden start sucking, I am not going to stand in their way.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:12 pm
Seeing as they're probably the best search engine out there, and Google Video is nearly useless (it's terrible, YouTube is probably better in every way), unless they somehow screw up YouTube, I see no problem with them doing this.
Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:24 pm
Kugetsu wrote:Seeing as they're probably the best search engine out there, and Google Video is nearly useless (it's terrible, YouTube is probably better in every way), unless they somehow screw up YouTube, I see no problem with them doing this.
Well apparently YouTube is going to remain how it is, but with some improvements from Google. YouTube will keep it's name and corporate offices.
Hopefully, Google will keep everything exactly the way it is, with the excpetion of being able to download videos from the website into an iPod format (ala Google Video)