Technology360

Google to Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion

So is it now YooTube?

Well, the rumor was off by only $0.05 billion.  Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jeremy W. Peters have the story in the New York Times. 

Umair Haque has some interesting analysis of it in Deal Note: Google + YouTube.  Link:  Edgegeneration. 

So does Diane Mermigas in Google-YouTube deal expands broadband nation.  She writes:

... Google will do for Internet video what it has done for the printed word: provide consumers with the level of findability, access and function that powers future interactive media economics. Google's disjointed approach to video so far lacks YouTube's semblance of community and social networking -- an essential for Web success these days -- among engaged users who advertisers are eager to mine. Google (the most expensive media company with a $130 billion market capitalization) is like the Greek oracle to which a universe of Internet users flock for answers, but it's still not a place where they're invited to congregate to share ideas, observations, video and sound files.  ¶  As long as Google can become adept at the science of social networking, the YouTube acquisition -- initially valued by Forrester Research at about $32 for each of its 50 million users worldwide -- will pay off handsomely. Google is buying YouTube's online critical mass with 46% of the market share, compared with Google's 11% and MySpace's 21%. Google is betting that such user traffic is not only sustainable but also potentially explosive for anyone who can figure out how to monetize online video. ...

Link:  Hollywood Reporter.  --Dennis

Google in talks to acquire YouTube

Michael Arrington passed on a rumor yesterday (Completely Unsubstantiated Google/YouTube Rumor, link: TechCrunch) that Google was in talks to acquire YouTube for $1.6B.  This morning's Wall Street Journal is now reporting it as fact (front page, 7 Oct. 2006).

Update 8 Oct. 2006:
Anders Bylund writes why this isn't likely to happen in, Rumors fly about Google acquisition of YouTube.  Link: Ars Technica.

Update 9 Oct. 2006:
It's a done deal.  See Google to Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion.  --Dennis

Goldhaber: How Attention Works, part 3

Michael H. Goldhaber is serializing the third chapter of his new book.  Part 3 of that chapter has just been posted to Goldhaber's weblog.  Earlier, I posted links to the first and second parts.   All are pdf links.  --Dennis

Vid-sharing craze fuels the digital-space race

Diane Mermigas writes:

Broadcast networks and TV stations are at the dreaded "damned if you do, damned if you don't" place.  ¶   Theirs is the most difficult transition of all traditional media into the digital broadband space because they have built their business on strictly dictated one-way entertainment, news and advertising devised and placed their way. For the most part, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox are attempting to transport their content and advertising as-is into the new-media space in the hope it will lift their new-media fortunes and those of their affiliated TV stations. But by the time these media giants jumped on the digital bandwagon, it was crowded by new players and radically changed consumer behavior.  ¶   That is a harsh reality of the new-media world to which branded broadcast and cable networks, film studios and production houses are struggling to adjust. There is no rule book on how to survive the stiff competition of ephemeral user-generated content from the very consumers who are needed to support commercial media. ...

Link:  Hollywood Reporter.

In other words, be more public

Doc Searls has six pieces of advice for public radio:

First, radio isn't about "content delivery". ...
Second, quit copying commercial broadcasters. ...
Third, face the fact that everything you broadcast will, and should, be available on an a la carte basis to everybody in the world, eventually. ...
Fourth, look to relationship for saving the local stations. ...
Fifth, get in front of the citizen journalism movement. ...
Sixth, get ready for VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management systems...

Link:  Doc Searls Weblog.  Good stuff.  --Dennis

YouTube's Video Poker

YouTube has gained some critics (below) in recent weeks.  Saul Hansell takes a look at the popular video site, writing that it's starting to monetize its business:

... YouTube has started to attract mainstream advertisers and the site has become financially stable, Mr. Hurley said, despite the huge cost of showing more than 100 million video clips a day. Potentially most significant, Mr. Hurley pointed to a deal signed recently with Warner Music that he hopes will be a model for dealing with Hollywood and record companies from now on. YouTube is developing technology that will identify Warner music used in a video that is uploaded. When the site plays those videos, it will share some of its advertising revenue with Warner and others with copyrighted material that is used.  ¶  Moreover, Mr. Hurley says, there is much more to YouTube than piracy. And professionals are creating programs specifically for YouTube: the recent series of clips posted under the name Lonelygirl15, for example, showed an actress pretending to be a disaffected teenager. ...

Link:  New York Times.

The critics include:  Jason Calacanis (Nice knowing you YouTube, link: calcanis.com) and Mark Cuban (The Coming Dramatic Decline of YouTube, link  blog maverick; and Riddle me this copyright gurus, link: blog maverick).

And supporters, in addition to its jillions of users, include Fred Wilson (Stop the YouTube Hating!, link:  A VC).  --Dennis

Unpopular culture

Jeff Jarvis has some interesting comments about "a PBS panel ... on news and the tabloid culture" in which he participated at Reuters.   He concludes,

... I do my predictable rant arguing that this is about respect for the people and about listening. When we dismiss popular culture we dismiss the population. We do see Fanning of PBS and Gladstone of NPR making good use of new media to present news but I argue that is less than half the battle (and the head of PBS says that PBS — particularly Frontline — is looking to use new media to open up to new talent and new reporting): It’s about listening to the people.

Link:  BuzzMachine.  --Dennis

DTV Subsidies: Not So Invisible Hands Reach For More

Public comments are back on the NTIA's proposed rules for administering the DTV converter box subsidy.  The small subsidy is supposed to encourage consumers to add another box to their existing set-top collection and to climb up on the roof to re-install the antenna they took down in 1978 when cable came to town.  Congress' motivation is to ensure that their Feb. 2009 date for shutting off analog television doesn't get pushed back yet again because it wants billion$ from the $pectrum auction which will result.  James Gattuso has some comments on the responses NTIA received from the MSTV/CEA/NAB joint comments and from a coalition of retailers including big box electronics stores, Amazon, et al.  He thinks that the latter should be nominated for "some lobbying chutzpah award."  Link: The Technology Liberation Front.  Link to all comments received.  --Dennis