Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

youtube proxy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:28:06 -0000

definitely no, youtube needs google but google doesn't need youtube to survive you see..

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

sahith — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:08:45 -0000

definitely a worthy choice. because that was a google choice :)

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

lia84 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:53:15 -0000

Check out this cool photo tagging software called Fotobounce! It can help you sort your images using face recognition! It can also download & tag your photos from facebook & flickr! You can get it for free at: http://fotobounce.com/index...

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Olaf Lederer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:12:14 -0000

:)
After all the time we that the price was to high. On the other site I think Youtube is very important for Google. Videos are the future medium for advertising (Much cheaper than TV commercials)

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

TheEnglishSpy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:55:37 -0000

Google/YouTube has contracts with major tv/movie publishers. So if Youtube allows a monthly subscription for $5? per month, allowing you to watch 165 thousand high quality series, movies etc. hooked up to your pc or tv ....

And if only a fraction of the million visitors agrees to sign up for this online TV subscription (leaving their home tv provider, with only 50 channels) .. well, I think the revenue per month will go up anyway. :-)

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

javier_ramos — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:21:06 -0000

Google knows..They have a lot of graph thingies calculating everything on an insanely minute level. I doubt they miscalculated it.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Scott Barrington — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:38:34 -0000

i just hope they don't scare us all off, whilst trying to monetize it.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Abraham González — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:33:14 -0000

Definitely no, google didn't overpaid for Youtube. Youtube would be more expensive in five years and google know how to earn money, so they will find the way to do that. They just bought it before someone else find the way to duplicate or triplicate the earns of Youtube.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

elves — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:21:06 -0000

Google never wanted make much money of it, Google only wants dominate the internet and this is proftable.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Jeremy Campbell — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:32:29 -0000

Short term the $1 billion premium seems really high but going forward as we enter a more video centric Internet there will be massive value in having the indisputable #1 market leader in YouTube. Eventually YouTube may become Google's top property to both drive revenues and profits. I say Google made a bold but solid decision.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Kamran Razvan / Click & Pledge — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:22:39 -0000

I am yet to see lots of negative numbers adding up to a positive numbers. All my years of studying math has thought me that about negative numbers. Frankly over the years I have not seen anything innovative out of Google. Yes they have a great search engine and that is currently their cash cow but what else do they have? Please note that a while back they hired lots of top notch programmers and scientists. One only expects that all that brain power in one place will innovate and change a paradigm or two. YouTube is a free hosting site for video. Are the ads working in that space? There are lots of stats about how ads in social spaces are not working. I also wonder about Twitter and if that can possibly make money. Of course when one has that much money one can buy everything out there and hope one of them eventually works as the next best thing. Free is a powerful word and having loss leader is a proven concept but let's hope the loss leader does not become a burden anytime soon.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

paramendra — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:07:18 -0000

YouTube is yet to be monetized. It will be monetized. So, no, not overpaid.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

mikeology — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:38:38 -0000

YouTube is not a true video search engine, it is a search host. That makes it vulnerable to true search engines, just as news host sites became vulnerable when Google News emerged. As soon as someone comes along with a better search engine that covers YouTube and the other video hosting services, Google will be stuck with a hosting service that loses hundreds of millions of dollars per year. The logic that says Google should buy hosting services in order to improve search might just as well be applied to the whole Internet; one could argue that Google should buy the top 10 website hosting services in order to improve search. That would be nuts. Also: YouTube is limited in its distribution capabilities: YouTube videos must remain hosted and watermarked by YouTube, and therefore cannot be effectively syndicated for profit by their creators. Creators must go to the other video hosts for true distribution/syndication capability.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Brad F. — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:07:43 -0000

I think it was a good move for them to buy YouTube. It helped to spread the Google name more. A lot of people today think Google IS the internet. That's bad in some ways, but good for Google.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

JTierney — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:37:13 -0000

It is the second largest search engine in the world - the revenue will come as the technology and business models mature. What would one pay for the world's largest search engine? Perhaps that puts it in a different perspective.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Senderok Allen — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:32:27 -0000

Considering that YouTube had 98 Million visitors in July 2009 according to this new article from today http://www.ploked.com/faceb..., that is more than Facebook had in July (and its 50% of the reach of the entire Internet which was 200 Million) and it is still the leading place to go to search for videos (among English speaking people - there are several reasons why others might not try YouTube first), then the folks at Google certainly seem to have shorn up their status as a place to search for text/video content that isn't books (an area they are also not slouching on). One would have to compare this $1.6B with the total perceived value of Google itself (and over time).

With more and more thoughts/knowledge = content being transferred by regular people from blog entries to video entries (hindered often mainly by the feelings of needing a bit of privacy), video will take more and more of a percentage of knowledge content to search for.

Google didn't want to lose the title of search king if and when video trumped text...plain and simple.

Note from that Ploked article that the AOL Ad Network apparently had more overall reach (visitors compared to overall Internet users) in July than Google did.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Berislav Lopac — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:45:32 -0000

Actually, I don't think Google's main intent was on acquiring users, but on making sure that they have a say in future litigation.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Rani — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:41:12 -0000

The question that should be asked is whether google gained any synergy benefits from the deal. If it was able to share costs, use youtube to promote google products enough, and find areas where they are better able to run youtube, then google would hopefully earn more than they paid from the deal.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

LYF — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:24:40 -0000

yes Google is totally crazy
http://Evolvhealthy.com
http://blastoffpress.com

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Jared O'Toole — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:22:59 -0000

Looks like the right choice. As long as youtube stays the market leader by such a huge margin they can find a way to leverage that. Either way all those users are using a google product instead of a competitors.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Chanda | BizDharma.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:15:06 -0000

Absolutely Worth it. As you very well mentioned after 3 years if there is one site that comes to mind about Video and broadcasting its You Tube. Also one thought that I had was with more and more search products on the shelf by Google, Video search was a bit obvious. Now either it could just cache the tags on videos or Download the whole videos on its hard disk to provide search. We already have "Similar Images" search with Google, Similar Videos would as it is require Google to shell out that much cash. And once these sites start generating revenues You Tube will require least effort. So all in all it was a absolutely worth it buy !

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

alextgrant — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:13:49 -0000

I think that Google probably cared very little about revenue streams from youtube. It was more important for them to stop anybody else acquiring it and leveraging it in order to challenge the tight grip google has over the internet users (i.e. almost everyone in the world). An extra billion is not much to pay to nip any challenge at the bud like they have managed in doing the deal in the first place.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

Billy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:05:11 -0000

Definitely the right choice since Google now owns the 2 highest trafficked and used search engines. Also, people love sharing videos above all else.

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

david sloly — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:43:12 -0000

its a tough one to call, but honestly i think Google did the right thing. after all isnt YouTube the second largest search engine on the net?

Re: Google Overpaid YouTube by $1 Billion … Was it Worth It?

esoomllub — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:23:48 -0000

There is always a premium to being first to market (or biggest in the market). Either you pay it when building, or you pay to acquire. I'm not a frequent youtube viewer. When I want to find a video that I hear others chatting about though, I go straight to youtube.