Sunday, October 15, 2006

YouTube Strikes Gold

I admit, I didn't believe it. I didn't believe YouTube would ever make money. I had read numerous stories about how YouTube was hemmoraging money, how it had copyright issues, how it was struggling with bandwidth. Sure, it was popular and everybody was excited about it, but what was it? I figured it was a throwback to the dot-com failures of yesteryear - all hype, no profit. In a year or two, the start-up money would run out and it would collapse. And then, Google bought it for over a billion dollars. And now I wish I had thought of it. The three founding members get to split a billion dollars. I guess it's true what they say; if you build it, they will come. Will YouTube continue to be successful in the long run? Who cares, they got paid.
Categories: news

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was reading an article the other day about how the sale shocked pretty much everyone and the general feeling is they overpaid. That said, what should be interesting is how other video-sharing companies are going to value themselves. If a company as belabored as YouTube gets bought for $1.65 billion, how much can an established company ask? Plus Google gives it legitimacy and raises the copyright concerns that already exist on YouTube.
Overall, great for YouTube creators, but not so good for YouTube.

Nigel G Mitchell said...

I agree, it was way overpriced, but it showed how desperate Google was to get into online video. They do a lot of things right, so I'm guessing Google has the match to back that price up. Maybe just by being able to own video online or being able to shut down their Google Video site makes it worth it. But I'm more interested in the creators of YouTube. Those guys got paid and that's success in my book. Let Google take on a sinking ship.

Nigel G Mitchell said...

As for other companies, they're dreaming if they think they can get YouTube's price. YouTube was valuable because it was a brand with unparalleled force behind it. YouTube represents online video. The other sites I've seen bandied about as the next YouTube like Blurb and Tabblo aren't even close.