Yes, after a long week of rumours it has been done. It wasn’t Microsoft. It wasn’t Yahoo. It was the big mighty G telling everybody that they are very serious about the Internet Video business.
Quoting the press release:
When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world’s most popular services for video entertainment.
This means that Youtube will coexist with Google Video at least for a while.
The question is: for how long? Will Google move all the user accounts and Videos from Youtube to Google Video? Will they keep using the “Youtube” brand? They dropped the “Urchin” brand after they bought it and renamed it to Google Analytics. Personally I don’t think this will happen with Youtube, since what is really valuable in Youtube is the brand and the community behind it. Look at these graphs from Hitwise Intelligence:
The red line is Youtube and the light blue line is Google Video. Youtube growth has been astronomical.
About the possible legal threats, Scoble hits the nail:
Now, will Google get sued over and over? Probably. But if you think that matters then you are missing the point. Did Microsoft’s legal troubles slow down its cash generation machines? No. Neither will Google’s. Plus, Google has demonstrated it’s fairly adept at working out deals with folks who produce content, or own it. Yeah, they’ll probably lose a few battles in court, but that’s like losing a battle or two but winning the war.
Techcrunch also reports:
Details are also emerging that Yahoo was in the bidding war until very close to the end.
Interesting. Om Malik also lists Yahoo as the biggest loser with this acquisition.
More coverage in Techmeme.
I for one, welcome our new Internet Video overlords, that will become Skynet someday.
Comments (3)
uy primicia
Here is my take. I think the main motive behind the acquisition is more towards video ad revenue rather than information accessibility. However, they had to pay a really high price for that along with many loopholes such as legal liability from copyright holders that could wipe out YouTube from existence like Napster. Another issue, is that copyright law is quite vague in terms of online interpretations and that could play a major role in Google’s legal liability. So, I would suggest that Google and YouTube spend some real time and money trying to convince these copyright holders to establish partnerships with them as they have with Universal and Sony. On another front, they are going to also motivate yahoo and microsoft to start advancing in their video services as well as possible acquisitions. If this becomes succesful, yahoo and msn are going to feel the pain of not taking action of acquiring youtube. Well, it is really the choices and the actions we take that really determine the success. Lets wait and see.
I just bought and installed a new Youtube video script for my site. I wonder how Google’s aquisition will affect me? My guess is not too much. The Youtube name brand is worth too much for Google to discard. I’m guessing Youtube just continues doing what it’s doing even with the new ownership.