5 comments

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  Rob Leathern

  2 years ago

  We're still a long way off from the madness of 1999-2000, but certainly a deal like this does raise an eyebrow or two with the potential legal overhang. Mark Cuban's blog is worth a read on YouTube-Google - the original bubble-video-stream-guy from way back when. We do, however, inhabit a very different online marketspace today, one where there are real advertising revenues available and where the big competitors have more than multiples-of-pageviews valuation metrics going for them. There's actually something at stake. All that being said, it's a whopper isn't it?
  
  I have to agree that medium and long-term though, online is still underhyped, scary as that is to say!
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  Abdul Rahman

  2 years ago

  Another dot-com boom? Heck, I hate it. Hopefully there will be no more of that bomb again. I never thought Google will make this move cause it will trigger big company to bla-bla-bla (legal) their threat again. By the way Rob, Jeremy have written a counter-response Mark Cuban's . You should read it as well.
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  The Muso

  2 years ago

  As I commented on Techcrunch when rumours of this first appeared, I think this is a match made in heaven. Google will be better placed than any to help YouTube monetise its traffic, steer through stormy legal waters and fix up their abysmal search functionality. YouTube will give Google its best shot at a lucrative product offering outside of core search and well has helping them to grow their existing business into multimedia search.
  
  Most interesting for me will be to monitor the relative successes of the (sure to be) different approaches to monetising the user-generated web that content-rich, protectionist NewCorp and content-free, openly syndicated Google will adopt. It’s highly likely that both will come up with successful strategies, but I’m betting that there are many web2.0 entrepreneurs out there who will be watching with interest. Personally I hope Google blows them to shreds!
  
  Mark Cuban may be onto something (though I must admit to not believing this to be the case), but he’s also eating humble pie after brashly stating a couple of weeks ago that no one would touch YouTube. I think that people are too easily preoccupied with the potential for copyright infringement, when the real value of sites such as YouTube is the genuinely amateur fare that is available. An awful phonecam video that we posted on YouTube of the Jose Gonzalez’s gig at The Armchair has been viewed thousands of times in the last few months despite being one of hundreds of versions of the same track! The mind boggles.
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  rafiq

  2 years ago

  Broken link => Titans http//www.vinnylingham.com/2006/05/the-clash-of-the-titans-a-fresh-perspective.html
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  Vinny Lingham

  2 years ago

  Thanks Rafiq - it's fixed now. There are lots of views on this deal - I really think it was a great deal for Google, but time will tell.
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