Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube

An anonymous reader writes "The average visitor to YouTube is costing Google between one and two dollars, according to new research that shows Google losing up to $1.65 million per day on the video site. More than two years after Google acquired YouTube, income from premium offers and other revenue generators don't offset YouTube's expenses of content acquisition, bandwidth, and storage. YouTube is expected to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009, costing Google up to $2,064,054 a day, or $753 million annualized. Revenue projections for YouTube fall between $90 million and $240 million." Maybe this is in part because, as Al writes, "Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence."

Comments

REALLY now?

[courseofhumanevents]

"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence." Let me be the first to say "I told you so."

Re:REALLY now?

[eldavojohn]

"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence." Let me be the first to say "I told you so."

The researchers found some very useful information though--like the fact that a man getting kicked in the testicles is just as funny or maybe even more funny in grainy home video than in high definition. After performing principal component analysis on several testicle injury clips rated across thousands of users, they found--surprisingly--that the most important variables are (1) how wide the victim's eyes opened upon impact, (2) how loud of a scream the victim emitted upon impact and (3) how long the victim lay motionless on the ground after initial agony.

Yeah, but

[slagheap]

they're making it up in volume.

Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model

[shadow349]

Youtube is only the first domino in Google's house of cards.

Checkmate.

Priceless...

[TibbonZero]

Content Acquisition - $710,000
Revenue Sharing - $66,000
Administrative Costs - $252,000
Being the number 1 video site on the internet.... Priceless

Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model

[cbiltcliffe]

Google builds card houses out of dominos?

How the heck does that work?

Re:Let's all do google a favour...

[siriuskase]

I like youtuve. It pains me to think that my pleaseure is costing them.

Re:Let's all do google a favour...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like youtuve. It pains me to think that my pleaseure is costing them.

I can tell. Your comment here looks just like a comment on YouTube.

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[idontgno]

I suspect it's the unholy fusion of accounting and proctology.

Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube is only the first domino in Google's house of cards.

Checkmate.

Maybe he should change his name from BadAnalogyGuy to MixedMetaphorGuy?

Bingo.

Huh.

[cthrall]

Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube

I see I'm not the only one who gets paid to do this.

Re:The Real Reason

[MightyMartian]

Sweet sweet irony.

Let me try

[Zarf]

I would just need that amount for a few days. I'm sure I could turn it all around. Just deposit that amount in my offshore bank account as my salary. If it doesn't work... you won't be out any more than usual. Why not give me a try?

Re:Quality vs. Quantity.

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, are the quality and popularity statistics really that surprising when the average YouTube video is uploaded with a cheap webcam and recorded by someone who makes Paris Hilton look like Einstein?

I showed your comment to Paris Hilton, she says she's not offended since "Einstein looked pretty hot."

That explains it.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Let me relay a little dialog in which I learned the REAL revenue model of youtube. I got this mysterious call just a few days ago.

Me: Hello
Them: Mr or Ms Skull?
Me: Yes, may I help you?
Them: You remember that ... embarrassing video you posted to youtube a couple of years back?
Me: Um... yes?
Them: You know you gave us-- I mean, google ownership of it.
Me: I ... guess so?
Them: Yes. We have noticed that you have been searching for jobs lately.
Me: who is this?
Them: And we see from your email that you've been speaking with Innitech in particular.
Me: if you don't tell me-
Them: And we also see that you mapped out directions to their headquarters.
Me: I'm going to hang -
Them: If you don't want Innitech to find this video before hiring you, you will wire 1,000,000 USD to the following numbered account

New Internet Jobs

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I wonder if there is a connection to the massive job openings posted by Microsoft in China. The only requirement is as following: "Ability to hit refresh-button on an internet browser."