Google Acquiring YouTube
October 9, 2006
Google is in the process of acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion.
According to the press release:
The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.
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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.
Since YouTube will be “strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business”, does this mean Google Video will remain intact with YouTube remaining in parallel? This would seem odd considering YouTube and Google Video are direct competitors. It only seems like good business sense to merge the two in some way.
The main positive to come out of this deal is that YouTube is not going away anytime soon. Knowing they had financial troubles and were rumored to be burning through venture capital money very quickly, most predictions suggested YouTube would implode if it did not find a sustainable business model. Google is the king of making these things work. Their vast user base, ad network, and searching capabilities should combine nicely with YouTube. Add to this their past history of succeeding with things people thought to large to sustain (see 2GB quotas in GMail), you have the perfect match here.
Tags: google, google video, network, search, video, youtube
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Wow. It’d be my bet that Google Video and YouTube will merge into one. 1.65 billion. That’s quite a figure.
dobre kurde fuckin goo! =)
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