There is one paragraph from the New York Times story below that jumped out at me, for its complete and total irony. I'll make it bold, and see what you think. I've also got a few snarky interpretive comments below.
Link: Google Is Said to Set Sights on YouTube - New York Times.
Google Is Said to Set Sights on YouTube
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and PETER EDMONSTON
[...]
Google is in discussions to acquire YouTube for $1.6 billion, people involved in the talks said yesterday. While the talks are in the early stages, and may fall apart, the size of Google’s offer may push YouTube closer to a deal. Other companies have also expressed interest and could swoop in with a higher offer.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Viacom and the News Corporation, among others, have all visited YouTube’s headquarters in San Mateo, Calif., in recent months to inquire about buying the company.
[...]
A deal for YouTube would be the crowning moment for a property that emerged as a cultural phenomenon almost immediately after it officially began last December. Its site, which delivers more than 100 million video clips a day, allows users to share a broad array of offerings from news clips to home movies to spoofs — sometimes funny but often simply crude — created by ordinary users.
Almost single-handedly, YouTube has both popularized the sharing of videos and empowered would-be movie makers around the world. The site is also facing possible legal challenges over the unauthorized posting and sharing of videos. Yet a number of media companies would prefer to embrace YouTube as a partner, rather than treat it as a pariah, as was the case with Napster.
[...]
The $1.6 billion price tag, while seemingly rich for so young a company, makes sense, research analysts said.
“That’s expensive but not unreasonable,” said Charlene Li, an analyst with Forrester Research. Ms. Li estimated that the company has about 50 million users worldwide, which works out to a purchase price of about $32 a user.
The deal would make sense from the perspective of both companies, Ms. Li and others said.
“Google Video has not gotten any traction,” Ms. Li said.
Despite Google’s broad reach as an Internet search service and its well-known brand name, Google Video has only a 10 percent market share, according to Hitwise, which monitors Web traffic. YouTube has a 46 percent share, and MySpace has 23 percent.
“YouTube figured out what Google and Yahoo and Microsoft and all the others in the marketplace didn’t,” she said. “It’s not about the video. It’s about creating a community around the video.
[...]
Gee, what was their first clue? You know, I suspect the odds are right up there with the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, for big 900-pound gorilla companies to be able to magically "create" communities with a wave of their well-funded magic wands. This also reinforces what I discovered in my dissertation community ethnography.
But for all the talk about creating communities, I think there is one traditional marketing angle that YouTube has that other companies are overlooking. The service isn't just viral (in that you can post the code and run the Flash-swapped video on your site, something most web site owners admittedly DON'T want, to the point of complaining of people taking their deep-linked image code and server load time and punting it for free on another site): it also is remarkably branded.
I'm referring to the YouTube brand in the corner of every punted video. For ANY online viral video service to compete, it has to have a way to brand the video on every site it appears on, like that YouTube watermark in the right corner, and the distinctive large centered play button.
Sure, anybody can watermark anything, and there's nothing really brilliant about the YouTube interface design (if anything, Flickr is a far better-designed social media sharing service. YouTube link placements drive me crazy). Which just goes to show you, interface design has very little to do with YouTube's success. Should I be depressed about this, as a designer, or should I be happy that communities trump design? I did learn this truth definitively in my dissertation, after all.
So if you have "Google Video" watermarked in a corner or whatever, is that just as good as the YouTube watermark? No. By the power of repetition, the YouTube watermark doesn't just brand the video, it communicates a message, over and over again, a message of revolt against traditional media, traditional television video providers and producers. It says "This is about YOU." It says "This is YOUR Tube."
Now, Napster was just a word that made me want to take a nap, so I'm not saying this is a be-all and end-all factor.
But I still think the communicative message of the YouTube brand and watermark make it a tough standard for any competitor to fight. Better interface design, better features, even a 900-pound gorilla like Google can't fight it.
It has a first-mover advantage, a thriving community, and a brand that makes each and every user want to thump his or her chest and say "This is MY Tube!
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