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Google in Talks to Buy YouTube
tessaiga writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is in talks to buy YouTube for about $1.6 billion. YouTube users watch more that 100 million videos daily, and the site's market share tops that of similar services offered by Google and other popular Web sites. This comes after a story earlier this morning that co-founder Sergey Brin is pushing for Google to cut back on the volume of products being offered, complaining that 'I was getting lost in the sheer volume of the products we were releasing'. Guess Google Video is one of the products making the approved shortlist."
What do you want to bet that the programmers at YouTube would have never made it through Google's interview process?
I didn't expect that!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Surely they'd only be buying the YouTube name. Google has way more hardware, and an already succesful video product out there. Maybe they are trying to eliminate the competition, and get the ad revenue all for themselves. Is YouTube really worth that much to them though?
Its funny how every day the lines between google and microsoft blur. If microsoft tried this an unholy hell would be released..
Google Video is probably the first example that comes to mind of the emergent Yet Another Half-Baked Google Technology phenomenon. By buying YouTube, they get a best-of-breed player on their side without diverting more in-house R&D resources. Given their (Google's) cash reserves, it's the right thing to do.
IMO, this offer really seems to add credibility to the "myspace sale was a scam" theory.
"cut back on the volume of products being offered"
Didn't we learn last week that you can work on anything you want at Google?
...it's amazing how not sucking works wonders for the way people interpret your actions and qualify the possible repercussions.
These stories are free but worth money.
Gotta love the related story on this one. Only a moron would buy Youtube, indeed.
YouTube links are the only "You gotta see this." links that I get that I actually open on occassion. I think Google is making a great move here, if it's true. Given the other recent story about Google allowing google home page elements to be posted in websites, YouTube is a natural eyeball catcher to pull in people off personal websites.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
In other news, Google has voted successfully to change the company's motto from "Don't be Evil" to "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!"
I want a 120 character signature! Please can I have a 120 character signature? I really really want one! 120 characters!
How'd that yahoo-facebook deal go? Not a single verification of the story in 2 weeks?
Whaddya know. Not all rumors are true. Last time, it was 'industry executives', this time it's 'a person familiar with the matter'.
They plan to call it "GooTube."
You don't want to know what the new logo looks like.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Google hasn't really promoted the brand of any previous acquisitions, such as Writely... Seems to me they've mostly just ditched an acquisition's brand name and assimilated its tech.
This then poses an interesting brand question: YouTube has, oh, about 10^4 times more brand equity than anything else Google has snapped up before, so how would we see this branded? Google YouTube? Google Video Powered by YouTube? YouTube powered by Google?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
An easy way to vote for duplicate movies! Quite often I find movies with an identical title, run-length and even preview icon. It would be nice if you could (similar to "flag as in-appropriate") you could flag them as "dublicate of:URL". This shouldn't of course remove the duplicates immediately, as one of them could be higher quality, but if there are enough votes it should group them in search results and combine reviews and ratings.
Well a few things here
1. Google is buying out their biggest rival in google video, by adding the huge library and viwership, google video will be the place to go for anything related to videos online and give the already high traffic on google related services a boost
2. But it still doesn't solve the copyright problems google is going to face with RIAA and MPAA
3. This tatic (buying out competitor) sounds a lot like something MS would do, is this a sign that google is finally in a stage of major corporation like MS?
Google video may be the technically superior service, but it is almost completely lacking in social interaction. Youtube encourages you to have a vlog, to post video responses etc. Google video (at least from the standpoint of a Youtube user) is a little cold.
Google may well have the hardware, but they've a lot to learn about what makes a site popular. Myspace has to be one of the ugliest sites around yet its popularity is ever soaring because it is social. Google video just is not.
At the end of the day, Youtube is synonymous with the online video hosting/sharing community and that is what Google are paying £850 million for. That and the ability to integrate with existing Google products (Google calendar & vlog combined? That's some powerful stuff right there.)
"No, no, no, don't tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to."
Google look like their joining that happy band of companies that grew so big and had so much cash burning a hole in their pocket that they started buying insane companies for insane prices.
1. Invent Google algorithm
2. Invent Adsense
3. Profit!
4. Profit!
5. Buy loss making company for huge amount of money
6. No more profit!
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Weren't there some (probably unsubstantiated) rumors floating around about iTV having direct access to Google Video? If so, Steve must be rubbing his hands together in glee about this. :)