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

Insult to injury

[cbcanb]

On top of that, now Slashdot links to it...

Re:Insult to injury

[ztransform]

If all slashdot readers can AVOID the temptation to visit the utube site I'm sure the company would much appreciate it!

Re:Insult to injury

[AlexDV]

Ahem, I think you mean tubes. And, yes, given that the Internet is a series of tubes, it stands to reason that buying more tubes would allow you to get your Internets faster. After all, it's not just a truck that you can dump stuff on. Good grief, everyone knows that, you loser.

Tubes

[Grr]

Well luckily he has enough tubes for all those internets!

Oh, come off it.

[Kris_J]

Take the link out of the story, seriously.

Next aquisition

[kjart]

Obviously, utube.com will be Google's next aquisition - just look at how much traffic they get!

Re:Next aquisition

[aussie_a]

They don't, I checked. Several times.

Put up some advertising/adsense banners

[future assassin]

While you can. Might as well score some cash from the traffic.

Nothing to see here, it's up

[Animats]

Their site is fine now. Their equipment, though...

They're a surplus machinery dealer, and much of their equipment has seen hard use followed by neglect. The neglect is worse than the hard use. This lathe is a good example. That's a good Monarch precision lathe, but the picture, taken in 2000, shows considerable rust. Most of their gear is like that; it looks like it came out of an abandoned factory. It's repairable; you can send the lathe back to Monarch for an overhaul. But it's not good for much in its current condition. If there's any rust in the bearings, the precision is lost.

For comparison, see this Monarch Lathe on eBay. Made in 1950, and still in good shape. Those things will last a century if cared for.

If you have machinery like that around that's not in use, you have to oil it, then wrap it in plastic with some dessicant inside.

Probably just a misguided marketing ploy anyway

[tttonyyy]

Utube marketing guy: WTF? Our server is down!
Utube hosting provider: (putting down fire extinguisher) We want more money, you're burning bandwidth like the U.S. burns fossil fuels!
Utube marketing guy: Wait - I've just hear that Google bought YouTube and people are interested. Hey! This is an amazing marketing opportunity, I wonder how we can make use of it? (Pays hosting provider big wodge of cash)

(...ten minutes of googling later)

Utube marketing guy: My highly expensive and accurate research shows that tubes are incredibly important to our new potential customer base at slashdot.org, they talk about them a lot.
Utube CEO: OK, so how do we get their attention?
Utube marketing guy: Simple, we whine to CNN about how our business is going down the toilet thanks to google, then submit a story to slashdot - they love that stuff!

(...)

Slashdot editor: Hmm, I've been rejecting a lot of stories like this recently, and this one appears to be suitably poorly put together - perfect!
Slashdot editor: (skipping "Dupe Check"/"Spel Check"/"Grahma Check" buttons) *PUBLISH*
Slashdot readers: Oooh, how cruel to link to that site! (Follows link to see if servers really are down or not).
Server room: (indifferent rattle of hard disks)
Utube hosting provider: (puffing on expensive cigar) Suckers! Time to order my new Humvee.