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What Could YouTube Be Worth?
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net has a story about the possible cost of YouTube. Sony just paid $65 Million for small-time videosharing outfit 'Grouper'. That site has around 1% of the videosharing market. The article asks, at that price, what might YouTube's 43% be worth?" From the article: "Entertainment analysts have predicted in recent weeks that sites with large followings would command a high price. The Sony deal proved them right. But while the Grouper deal helped establish a benchmark, there is still plenty of confusion about the fair value of online video companies. This is because the typical metrics for measuring a company appear to have gone out the window--just like they did during the bubble years of the late 1990s."
Here's my brilliant Web 2.0 business plan:
1. Copy YouTube idea
2. Rename it PornTube
3. ???
4. Profit !!
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
Ohhh I love maths questions!
Sony just paid $65 Million for small-time videosharing outfit 'Grouper'. That site has around 1% of the videosharing market. The article asks, at that price, what might YouTube's 43% be worth?
I would think the answer is $65m * 43 = $2,795,000,000.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
950M, 650M, 250M, 250K. It's pulling 20gbps of data and has millions of eyes watching ad-ready video players.
It's only worth what it can make in a reasonable amount of time, and that time is growing short as video blogging competitors build their userbases.
Eventually their huge market share will begin being split by competiing sites that slightly beat their technology, and then the value starts to fall...
Video for Online Dating Profiles
Soon, Old Television shows and Movies will be offered on various sites as the rights are given out. Eventually you'll be able to watch any show or Movie that's ever existed. Then after this happens, a connection to your television or special television will be created that will let you watch anything that's every existed at your will.
These amatuer home videos are just the beginning. Eventually all professionally done shows will be available. And maybe there will be an indy uprising of stuff that wouldn't get on TV, but will be seen on the net. Actually that's already happened, but I believe amatuer stuff will become more refined over time.
God spoke to me.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
Entertainment analysts have predicted in recent weeks that sites with large followings would command a high price.
In other news, Entertainment analysts also predicted unanimously that tomorrow the sun will rise. Other predictions include that next week will have exactly 1 Monday and that Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa will not be candidates for the 2008 Presidential election.
More at 11.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
Copyright owners are finally starting to sue YouTube. Interestingly enough they are using the Grokster ruling, that "companies could be liable if they were found to induce the infringement in some manner."
Their terms of use say that users are responsible for any content posted. However, if I had a copyright on something posted I'd rather sue the company worth possibly billions than go through the hassle of hunting down a user.
I haven't really heard about too much of this, so they are probably doing a pretty good job of taking down offending clips, but when lawyers smell money in the water, look out.
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
Even if YouTube were to go bankrupt tomorrow, someone would still pay *big* bucks for their domain name. Probably someone like Google, Yahoo, or MS.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
Really, what made YouTube a success?
IMHO, it's soooo easy to watch the videos and share the videos. It used to be a royal pain to put video on your small or personal website. Real Audio? Windows Media? Quicktime? They were all problem prone. The odds of having those work for more than... oh, 70% of your viewers was slim at best. OS support, plugins working, and having the server side software -- it was all a mess. Never mind the bandwidth requirements. YouTube made it easy. Since more than 90% of people have Flash installed, and Flash video seems idiot proof (to watch), the whole video thing is now practical. Plus YouTube provides the bandwidth, and cut-and-paste HTML for sharing.
In hindsight, it's a simple concept, executed well, and with good timing. That said, I wouldn't spend a billion for it. I don't think people care where they host their videos as long as it's free, quick, and easy. I doubt that many people actually browse YouTube, so switching costs for video sharers and viewers is pretty much zero.
No one will buy YouTube because the company that buys them will be the instant winner of hundreds or possibly thousands of copyright lawsuits. Right now there is basically no incentive to sue YouTube because you can't extract much cash from them. But what if Google/Ebay/Yahoo owned YouTube? Well, now you have a nearly bottomless well of cash to go after, and since the offenses would be so trivial to prove, its free money.
Any company with the cash to buy YouTube is going to decide in the long run it isn't worth it.