It's official: Google buys YouTube

[mikeinworthing]

Well, what do you think?
At least it's not fucking Murdoch.

That was the first thing that popped into my head, well actually Murdoch or Microsoft!

Lesser of the three evils I guess.

 

[skunkboy69]

I think it's a shame.More monopolisation by the big companys.Can anyone really see Google making youtube better? I don't like the way Google works at searching either.The best thing about Firefox(when I used it) was the google tracker blocker plug in which stopped all your data being indexed.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Sony will have it before google.

nah mate their software would mean it wouldn't be compatible with anything else!!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

What will happen to the vids on google video?

Apparently at the moment both Google video and YouTube will remain separate brands. Can’t see that lasting though as everything Google buy eventually (like all corporate buyouts) gets absorbed into the whole Google thing (Gmail logins on Writely and Blogger for instance).

I’ve always preferred YouTube myself, Google video just seems so bland and YT has more weird/funny/creative stuff on it, or so it seems…

A bigger question is with this amongst all the things Google now owns/offers what are the implications for the future of the internet?

 

[i_hate_beckham]

A bigger question is with this amongst all the things Google now owns/offers what are the implications for the future of the internet?

When they take over wikipedia i'll be worried.

 

[ska invita]

I have a feeling that Google have bought a dud with YouTube - yeah, its very popular at the moment, but the best things on YouTIbe are breaking copyright law/intelectual property rights.

A lot of news/video footage is peopel recording it off the screen with other cameras.

Part of the deal, supposedly, has invovled Google promising to clean up the copyright infringements -its started already: the other day there was a link to a CBS news item, and now the link has been removed becasue of copyright.

If they really take out all this material the site will fall back to obscurity...down there with google video!

 

[exleper]

yeah, the worry among youtubers is that anything remotely copyrighted will be removed, and since that makes up such a huge proportion of the videos on youtube (music vids, tv clips, and often whole tv shows), we may see one of the best internet resources fall before it got a chance realise its full potential. which sucks.

 

[jayeola]

Mind you it's "news". I saw an entry on Newsnight last night and the presenter made it sound as if any one <30 years of age would never have heard of it. Time for viral marketing and more buzz-words perhaps?

 

[mauvais]

I just don't get it. What is YouTube? It's infrastructure, that's all. It's a very strong delivery mechanism, for delivering nothing.

Would anyone miss it if it simply went away? Would anyone miss it as much as $1.6bn if that went away?

I can't help thinking stuff like the Skype team's peer-to-peer quality TV stream idea is going to render centralised, crappy user content stuff worthless. I don't see the point.

 

[jayeola]

shit! google buying wikipedia. That would be bad.

 

[The Pious Pawn]

Its the start of it .....Get a gun licence now , Move near hills , Learn to be able to function with out computers and get ready to flea to the hills youve just moved near .....Soon we will all be numbers .

 

[stevepinker]

Look how much branding and people are worth nowadays


Google could set up a site that was pretty much a complete copy of youtube for next to nothing Instead it buys youtube and its users for $1.6billion.Strip youtube of its users i'm sure the company and the idea behind it would be worth less than $5million.

All Internet deals seem to be about buying a place in a future market

 

[ska invita]

Quite rigthly the ex-owners of YouTube are pissing themselves with glee...

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1892595,00.html

What a scam! - and as I say, it will all change once copyright comes into effect. Its a bit like selling napster, just before that court decision made it illegal.

 

[ivebeenhigh]

Looks like Google and News Corp are already in bed with each other anyway...

http://mashable.com/2006/10/11/myspace-panics-talks-with-google-may-block-youtube/

http://mashable.com/2006/08/07/google-will-power-myspace-search/

 

[mhendo]

er, google is free and raking in billions through its google ads. Clearly there are people clicking on those ads, I'm not one of them.

But at least on regular Google people are often searching for specific products or services, and the ads complement the search. With Google video or YouTube, people are looking for mindless entertainment. I'd be much less likely to click on an ad while searching YouTube or Google video for pictures of people falling down than i would on, say, an Amazon ad during a regular Google search for books.

I have a feeling that Google have bought a dud with YouTube - yeah, its very popular at the moment, but the best things on YouTIbe are breaking copyright law/intelectual property rights.

A lot of news/video footage is peopel recording it off the screen with other cameras.

Part of the deal, supposedly, has invovled Google promising to clean up the copyright infringements -its started already: the other day there was a link to a CBS news item, and now the link has been removed becasue of copyright.

If they really take out all this material the site will fall back to obscurity...down there with google video!

Yeah, i think this is going to be the killer for YouTube under Google. Much of the stuff that people watch on YouTube is copyright material. All the old music videos and similar good stuff will go once Google takes over.

 

[audiotech]

Google didn't want Yahoo to have it. A dumb decision, along with the copyright issue some posters have already mentioned.

 

[mauvais]

You might as well have paid that much for "You've Been Framed". Nonsense.