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Google Buys Video-Sharing Web Site

Posted on: Thursday, 12 October 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Josh Rouse

By Josh Rouse
Kansas State Collegian ( Kansas State U. )

(U-WIRE) MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The Internet search engine Google made history with its recent purchase of YouTube.com, a video-sharing Web site that has made news for several alleged copyright infringements. Google purchased the Web site Monday for $1.65 billion, the most expensive purchase Google has ever made. With YouTube's average showing of 100 million video clips per day, bloggers and experts alike are speculating whether the increased ad space of YouTube will be worth the money for Google. Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube, said in a news release he is confident that the new partnership will have many future benefits. "Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture," Hurley said in the release. "By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners. I'm confident that with this partnership, we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide." Dave MacFarland, associate professor of electronic media, said he isn't worried about YouTube being compromised or Google making more money. Rather, he thought it was interesting that the large television networks and movie producers didn't make the purchase. "What I find interesting is that the major television networks and movie producers didn't buy YouTube, and Google did," MacFarland said. "The traditional TV and movie people probably think the videos on YouTube are unprofessional and silly, and some of them are. But that's not the point. "The point is, where do people spend the time they allocate for watching videos or movies? Increasingly, it's to online sources. I can imagine Google making YouTube the one-stop, go-to place for anything in video or film. That means that the revenue stream the traditional media could have had will be smaller. They are the only losers I see so far." Thomas Gould, associate professor of journalism and mass communications, said the key benefit of Google's purchase is that it brings the company into the realm of video, an area Microsoft should be dominating. "I think the real impact on Google is that they finally get into the video area," Gould said. "This is probably a required move on their part, because you know Microsoft will be big in this area. The market seems to be pretty happy in general. "If you look at the favorites on YouTube, you're looking at the type of stuff that generally appeals to early teens, while Google has a wider demographic. It will be interesting because some of the advertising will go away. It's really not all that surprising." When asked about a comment from Google's Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, in which Schmidt said, "This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet," Gould said the statement was a bold one. "If it's a step, it's a small step. They've got a long way to go with YouTube to get where they want with that. That's just my opinion. They have a lot of work to do with marketing that. I'd like to see what it is that they plan to do with it, because the word is that they're not making money."

(C) 2006 Kansas State Collegian via U-WIRE

Source: U-WIRE

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