uTube.com Business Stalled by YouTube Purchase Hype

prostoalex writes "Google's acquisition of online video sharing site YouTube.com resulted in massive traffic headed to uTube.com, "the number one supplier of used Tube & Pipe equipment in the world!", according to the site. CNN Money reports: "The company, which sells used machinery for making tubes to clients worldwide, has seen its site utube.com knocked off line by millions of online searchers looking for video site. "It's killing us," said Ralph Girkins, president and owner of the 22-year-old business. "All my worldwide reps use our Web site. Customers all over the world use it to bring up photos of the machinery, descriptions and specifications there."""

Comments

and now we /. them

[notanatheist]

Good job y'all. They're already complaining about traffic and you link to their site?!

Oh, come off it.

[Kris_J]

Take the link out of the story, seriously.

Re:Oh, come off it.

[joekampf]

What about the sites that have been truley "slashdotted"? Meaning they actually had problems because of the unexpected overload of traffic caused by a slash dot link? You didn't review those. So I guess your whole post was pointless. Come on, remove the damn link! Every hit counts! Joe

Re:Oh, come off it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The editor knows very well that the traffic from Slashdot is not so dangerous. I have a site that was "slashdotted" multiple times and Slashdot brought only about 20,000 visits (I normally have 8,000 unique visits per day on average). I also examined the "slashdot effect" in publicly accessible access logs of other sites that were slashdotted; and again, they got only around 20,000 visits. Compared to millions of hits, it's nothing. Let's get real.

Translation: Lots and lots and lots of sites have been brought to their knees by the /. effect in the past. However since my slashdotted site was not and a few others also were not, with around the same number of visits, it is therefore true to say that the "slashdot effect is not dangerous". I am very happy to ignore the multitude of reasons why many slashdottings might actually be minor and I am also happy to ignore that the only sites with decent logs of a slashdotting, are the ones which survived it and thus many of those were minor.

Signed, I need to get real.

Solution

[Arwing]

You know, MLB.com had this problem a few years ago when it was owned by some law firm. Their solution is simple, have a really simple front page saying "If you are looking for the video site YOUtube, click on the link,
if you are looking for used hardware, click on Utube
It will save them some trouble in the short run, but my question is shouldn't this be happening all along since youtube is popular BEFORE google decided to buy it out?

Re:Solution

[Peeteriz]

The issue is that if the site gets promoted electronically, then the name/link tends to be correct.
But, if the issue is promoted on TV (like it was with the google buyout), then people just hear the name "youtoob" and with the trend of naming things iThis, eThat, it's quite likely that these people think that it should be written uTube.
Noone is going to make the mistake if they get the recommendation in writing - via e-mail, IM, etc - then YouTube can't be confused with uTube - but they do sound the same.

Ancient Slashdot Joke Retread

[lxdbxr]

Suggestion to CEO of uTube:

1. Register utube.biz or similar alternative name; make utube.com a lightweight page redirecting actual customers to the .biz site
2. Start selling ad space on the rest of the utube.com pages
3. Profit!

there's a reason I don't give slashdot my money!

[Xtifr]

Well, actually several, but mostly it boils down to the utter lack of editorial standards. Bad grammar, bad spelling, slashvertisements, links to semi-literate amateur blogs for stories carried by decent, high-quality sites, and ... sheer idiocy like this. I enjoy slashdot. It's an interesting diversion. And I've been around for a long time, and I still haven't given up on it. But the complete and utter lack of editorial common sense or professionalism is simpy infuriating at times! I would miss slashdot if it disappeared, but there's no way I'm willing to pay for something this poorly produced. And that's the bottom line.

However, at least this time I can be proud to announce that I did not RTFA! :)

Re:Spelling is HARD

[hyfe]

Can you tell the difference between uTube and YouTube when pronounced? No?

YAFIYGI

[RAMMS EIN]

"All my worldwide reps use our Web site. Customers all over the world use it to bring up photos of the machinery, descriptions and specifications there."

I guess they found out the hard way that making normal business operation dependent on the availability of the website, without taking great pains to assure that availability, is asking for trouble.

This time, they got slashdotted by mistake. Next time, it could be a targeted DDoS attack.

Re:Spelling is HARD

[aussie_a]

I suppose you laugh at people who think eyeTunes is spelt iTunes, right? They must be illiterate as well, right? Perhaps they really do think the body part known as the eye is spelt i.

Free Advertising?

[bad_fx]

Well shit, this seems like pretty good free advetising for these guys. I'd stop complaining if I were them...

Re:Spelling is HARD

[Chris Pimlott]

So you go shopping on EBB-eh for used IP-odds? Does it confuse you when Emile sends you email?

Single-letter prefixes and intentional bizarre "mispellings" are par for the course on the Internet. There's no good way for anyone not already familiar with YouTube to umabiguously know whether it was "utube" or "youtube" if they just heard the name.

I don't hear sysco complaining (cisco?)

[acomj]

2 companies, same pronounsiation.

sysco - provider of food stuff to eateries
http://www.sysco.com/
cisco - provider of network equipment.

Re:Nothing to see here, it's up

[Dun Malg]

And how the fuck is this modded +5 interesting?

It is far more interesting, in a relative sense, than the three hundred posts of "haw haw, now utube.com is linked by slashdot and they will get teh slashdoted" that comprise most of the rest of the discussion.