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Ballmer Sounds Off
PreacherTom writes "Steve Ballmer shares his thoughts on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, Zune, XBox, Vista, Bill's upcoming 2008 retirement, the future of Microsoft, and other subjects. For example, regarding the GooTube deal: "Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else. The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google." He's blunt, if nothing else."
Interviewer: Aren't you oversimplifying things? I mean YouTube was taking down copyrighted content once they were notified of its presence.
Ballmer: I'd never be guilty of oversimplifying something--I was merely attempting to explain a situation to the rest of the world about a company that just happens to be one of our biggest competitors and a direct threat in the search and advertisment industries. You don't remember it like that? Well I do and so does DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
My work here is dung.
Uh. Surely if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be, then what's happening is Google transferring money from the hands of Google investors into a holding tank for eventual litigants.
I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?
Now if only somebody could come up with an example of Microsoft laying claim to something that wasn't theirs...
This guy's the limit!
Now that YouTube has money behind it, Google can expect legal action from a whole bunch of people... some of it justified.
Coming from anyone else, I can cope with the picture that brings up in my mind. But from Ballmer?
"there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. [...] what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google"
That sounds like a business model.
At $1.6B, Google has transferred wealth from rights holders to the (outgoing) owners of YouTube.
What is clear is that Ballmer has no clue what's going on. Just like during the last bubble, when Microsoft was the last to "get" it. But then there was no Google producing apps closer to the consumer than Microsoft sits. So maybe this time a bubble, maybe its pop, will actually finally wash MS down the drain, the way we all thought we'd see with "missing the Internet" or Netscape or "Bob" or the monopoly decision or...
--
make install -not war
YouTube is trying to provide a legitimate platform, but it has A LOT of IP that doesn't belong to those posting it. For better or for worse, this is illegal and somewhat unethical. Google stepped into a minefield by buying them if they don't have a comprehensive way to filter out that stuff. If I were a shareholder, I'd be deeply worried that Google has opened themselves up to a potentially fatal IP battle. Between this and the Google book search IP lawsuits, Google is gambling big time and geek opinions on the legitimacy of IP law and how it should apply won't mean crap in a court of law WRT Google.
This blog post http://battellemedia.com/archives/002973.php
Has this thoughtful closing:
It's about managing the debate, it seems.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Think in this way: How many people visit YouTube every day? Millions.
What happens it you put Google adverts there? Yes, you guessed. You will have damn a lot of clicks.
Does it sound like a business model? Yep, I think so.
Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google, they had cash - they need to invest it. It gave them about 80% of downloaded videos. Is it good? For them, for a while, for sure. What happens next is up to them, and RIAA, MPIA and so. If they can struck some kind of deal, who knows. With their cash, influences.
That's exactly what Ballmer said. He 'wouldn't pay that much cash.' He MIGHT. Because it's very risky - but we all know that risky actions are most profitable. Time will show.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
Less than half of the popular videos when I just checked were from TV. Of those that were, 3/4 of them were news clips or Jon Stewart/Colbert Report. Even then, it is short clips.
What this quote is missing is that the majority of the content on YouTube is produced by the "You" in YouTube. That's what the new phenomenon of these video sites is really about. People producing and distributing their own content.
In fact, I wish people would just stop posting copyrighted videos. There's BitTorrent and a wide variety of other means to share that, if that's your thing. Why bother using YouTube for it, when you know that already having a popular video is enough to get it seeded?
People have been saying Microsoft and Windows * have been irrelevant every time there is a major Windows update.
And yet they keep on being relevant.
I bet Microsoft is calling around today asking if by chance somebody was to back them up financially would they invest in this cool company they know about that is tossing around the idea of a lawsuit
against google for infringement....you know wink, wink we got your back bro!
Got Code?
That really is the question, isn't it. Today advertising is where a large portion of the money is being made on the web.
It makes me want to go back in time and find and then murder the "clever" person who thought "I know, since we can't charge each listener for our radio program, we'll charge companies to advertise on our show!"
Advertising is a blight on our society. I can't even watch a frickin' movie that I paid to see without having advertising shoved down my throat...even in the damned movie!
Hasn't any business been paying attention?! People will actually spend money to avoid advertising. PVRs, DVD collections of TV shows, movie and music downloads...to a lot of people, it's not about "convenience", it's about not having to put up with commercials.
So to all the advertisers out there: FUCK OFF. When I want to find the best product for my money, I'll grab the nearest advertsing executive and beat it out of them.
My eyeballs are not for sale!
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Ballmer let slip at the end, (regarding European vista launch date):
"...we'll have to push the button because our partners--hardware makers and retail chains--need time to ramp up supply chains, marketing, and demand generation."
Demand generation. Vista itself has no demand (meaning no extra benefit over XP), so they have to artificially create demand now.
Everyone knows that You Tube has loads of copyrighted material that shouldn't be there. With this in mind, why would Google buy it and risk having their ass sued off? I wouldn't have bought it if I'd had the money for this one reason, but for some reason Google have done. Maybe they'll just remove all the copyrighted material or just charge a subscription for it?
Basically all it boils down to is that You Tube is the biggest video site on the net which Google now control and Microsoft are just pissed because they've just lost out on the biggest multimedia opportunity of this decade.
Summation 2
I was giggling to myself when I read this. "Squirt". Is m$ serious about trying to make this their word, like "Rip" or "Podcast". This is a horrible catch phrase that I believe is trademarked by the porn industry.
Can I bum a sig?
"Apple is refusing to give its users choice. With Windows Media Player you can play the music you buy on the device of your choosing."
That's a paraphrase but essentially Ballmer delivered that message. Then sometime later MS decides to release its Zune player and to say to its former music partners. I guess I could fill in the blanks here, "Sorry that you didn't realize MS+'Anyone' = MS." Namely that your interests are not ever really a consideration.
MS actually started its down video site. So if Mr. Ballmer feels so strongly, the question is, why? I know the answer by and large.
Ballmer simply has no tact whatsoever. He gets all emotional and contradicts himself later making him look like a capricious idiot.
-M
I thought the iPod model was where content get monetized through hardware. Unless Ballmer is equating content with software. Maybe I'm looking at this differently but in my world view content is faciliated by software but not an integral part of it. A novel is more than the word processor used to create it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The most frightening scenario is Google positioning itself as the uber-enforcement agent of copyright on the Internet, in exchange for a piece of the action. With the data it is accumulating, Google more than any other single firm can identify people, and tag them with the creation of violating derivative works or the consumption of violating works. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution is years.
Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion
Why is that I suspect that Microsoft also tried to buy youtube?
Vista and Microsoft is irrelavent? I suppose that's how Microsoft posted 9.74 Billion in revenue in Q1 06 which is a 7% increase year-over-year? That all occuring without Vista and Office 2007...am I missing something?
"Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. " (Check out the link, some quotes there are so timely it's scary).
(Yes, I know this is a setup)
Is there a video of the interview anywhere?
Summation 2
"[Take open source.] Open source is not a new technology area. It was a new business model", SB
First RFC April 1969 for the ARPANET. The Open Source Initiative originated in Feb 1998.
1969 is not "new." The OSI is also all about business. ESR and crew have cared more about corporate evangelism than anything else. (And yes, that is easy to verify)
"In the last three or four years, we have competed very well by extending our value", SB
Propoganda, sure.
"Microsoft has proposed a licencing agreement blatantly tailored to exclude free software from accessing it.", FSF Europe
Right...sure. Just like Stallman having warned people off the BSD license, telling people not to use the CC licenses, insisting that every other FOSS license on the planet be "harmonised" with the GPL, etc. The FSF complaining about *anyone* else using exclusionary licensing is about the degree of consistency I've come to expect from them...which is also why I no longer listen to a word they say. I wish I understood why I seem to be the only one who's seeing that Stallman wants his own monoculture just as badly as Gates/Ballmer want theirs...and neither are a good thing.
The rest is the usual propoganda and doublespeak BS, admittedly...but I actually did agree with him to a degree about the YouTube acquisition. Google have sunk a lot of money into buying an operation that is essentially a net-based hybrid of Funniest Home Videos and MTV, whose first profit was also actually the money Google paid for it...it's going to be interesting to see if they can create something profitable out of it.
Google is going to get in a battle with *AA over the legality of content on their websites. But now one of those small innovative company's (like Napster was) doesn't have to worry anymore about being strong-armed by the *AA because they don't have money. I don't think the *AA hasn't won a single case against a cash-giant like Google, they always go after the smaller IPO's, single mom's, 15yo girls and other "poor" people/companies which finally have to give up because of the cash drain and either settle or file for bankrupcy.
The good thing is that Google has a steady income of more cash which they can throw against the case if need be and they are thus going to be less likely to settle for a lump-sum and give up. They can also afford better lawyers and finally open the IP box of pandora and set an example/precedent.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Ballmer wasn't using wealth to mean "money in the bank account." He was using it in a more technical sense of the word. "Wealth," economically speaking, is stuff that has economic value. Cars and potatoes and the like. Money is just a means of quantifying wealth and facilitating the process of bartering for it.
Information (music, videos, etc.) has economic value, and is therefore wealth. That is what Ballmer was talking about, the transfer of that economically-valuable information from the copyright holders to google.
Now, this statement is still absurd, because of some "have your cake and eat it too" mentalities at work behind the concept of intellectual property.
If I take raw materials and use them to build a car, I have created wealth. I am now wealthier because of it. I also own the wealth I created, which means I control it. I can give it to you if I want, in which case you are more wealthy and I am less wealthy. Obviously I can't keep doing this endlessly without running myself dry, so I will need you to give me something back. Hence we barter. But what's important is that once I give that item to you, I don't have it anymore.
With information it is different. I can give you a copy of it without giving up my copy of it, and without having to expend resources in its creation. So, that means, I can give it to you and still keep it! Thus I get to make money by claiming your wealth (in the form of the money you pay me) without actually giving up any of the wealth I already have (the music/video/whatever).
Of course this is absurd, and demonstrates where common information-as-property metaphors fall short. It doesn't make sense for me to sell you a car and then claim that I still own it, so why does it make sense for me to sell you a digital file and then claim that I still own it? In the real world, I wouldn't have that car anymore, so does that mean that I am obligated to delete my copy of the song once I sell it to you? Of course not. Treating information as property leads to these sorts of contradictions because information is not property, and doesn't work the same way.
"Intellectual property" is basically a game of pretending like information works like property in some ways, but insisting that it does not work like property in other ways. We pretend it works like property when individual consumers are concerned (they can't make copies of cars without resources, so they shouldn't be able to make copies of information without resources either), but we insist that it does not work like property when rich businesses are concerned (sure, I sold you a COPY of the data, but really I still own the data). This is not only logically inconsistent, but economically harmful (it results in lots of money flowing upwards without any real wealth flowing downwards).
We should instead treat information as information, and rethink copyright laws. They should not arbitrarily restrict the zero-cost duplication and distribution of information (which is a great benefit to humanity in and of itself). We must also recognize that money not spent on electronic information is not money lost to the economy, but rather, money that can be spent in an economically healthy way (used to buy food or cars or any other traditional exchange in which the wealth flows in both directions).
I have already written more than anyone will read, so I won't bother to get into the false claims that intellectual property laws protect content providers (which they do not) and that giving them up will result in no new creations and cultural starvation (which it will not). I just hope that the next generation will be able to see through these hypocritical fallacies of "intellectual property law" and act more intelligently than the current generation is acting.
Uh. Surely if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be, then what's happening is Google transferring money from the hands of Google investors into a holding tank for eventual litigants.
No, because Google can spend huge volumes of cash defending itself - and as long as the service remains timley in removing copyrighted material, there is no problem. Basically, they have a lot of money to sue for but they can make sure you spend a lot as well. The are a larger, but a hardened, target.
I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?
No. Read the interview again - where he says "Someone has to compete with them. Maybe us, maybe Yahoo" and that "there has to be two companies competing in the media space for media owners to see value". Notice the realization and admission in that statemnet is that Google is ONE of those two companies. That means only ONE spot is left - and by admission it may not be Microsoft! Do you think that makes Balmer feel cozy, that 50% of the opportunity to control the media market online is gone now? Look at how dizzy he was on the question about YouTube valuation. He can't see it, and it's killing him. He feels like he's missing some part of the picture. He's essentially saying "I would pay 1.6 billion if I knew what the hell was going on!". Even his staement about the need to get in and "milk" a service was classic Microsoft that misses the value of a social network, which is in expansion and not squeezing it to death.
On a side note Balmer is dead wrong on that score, YouTube even when sending no money directly to media is creating value for the media companies even with illegal content by increasing mindshare and viewership of a show so media companies can collect money via other channels.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If Steve's so sure, isn't Google essentially transferring its wealth to rights holders - or can no one find a good attorney? Or perhaps Steve needs to read the DMCA. I don't see Comedy Central complaining about South Park and Daily Show clips flying around on YouTube. Perhaps Steve is just upset that investing hundreds of millions in proprietary video playback technology only got him tossed into court at the E.U. rather than actually building a successful social video Web site that customers actually like - and that spreads virally.
Balmer is so lame. He's lucky to be with MS, since I doubt anyone else would have him.
Re: quote above, the so-called "rights holders" wouldn't have this money otherwise. There wouldn't be any money otherwise since no one would be doing anything with it. Balmer is trying to start a fire by telling the RH's that somehow they're entitled to this unearned money, and cause problems for the competition. Wish we could just shut him up entirely, but that's not likely.
Of course, if MS was doing this instead, Balmer would be calling it a victory for the RH's.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion.
or, translated to normal english:
"We have no idea how they plan to make money on this, so it must be impossible."
The sounds of a man who can't accept that there might be people smarter than him on the planet.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In Soviet Russia Google will Fucking Kill(tm) itself?
Cool! Amazing Toys.
"Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place."
This would be very fun to take out of context.