Google Buys YouTube-Good Idea or Bad?

So Google is buying YouTube for 1.65 billion in stock. Is paying that much for a company that hasn’t made a dime another example of the Web 2.0 bubble buzz? Does this mean Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are all ”moronic” as Mark Cuban suggests?

Or is Mark Cuban nuts for not seeing the potential and that YouTube will be smooth enough of a salesman to settle the nerves of media giants, encouraging them to make deals instead of lawsuits? Partnerships with CBS, Sony BMG, and Universal music groups may just be the beginning of a lucrative long term opportunity.

Is Om Malik going to lose 40 pounds? Jenny Craig awaits.

Is Yahoo going to be left in the dust of the video sharing/social networking space?

Whether it is a good deal or not, we’ll find out in a year or two but one thing is for sure, Sequoia Capital are the ones who made out like bandits on this one. Half a billion for an 11.5 million investment. Booyah!

Choice Quote from Search Engine Article in NYT

I discovered a choice quote right at the end of this New York Times article on the latest search engine innovations and directions.

“What is remarkable in the data is that two-thirds of Internet users are quite naïve and clueless about what they’re doing with search engines,” Dr. Fallows said. “While so many people use the Internet, only a third are really working with it and using it much more in their daily lives.”

I don’t have an answer to this. Are search engines still too confusing to use? Are users simply lazy and don’t want to bother learning simple things like using quotes in searches? Should they have to? Are there too many media and content specific search sites? Google video search, A9 yellow pages, Google Suggest, local searches for Google and Yahoo need to be prefixed by “local”.

The choices and options are overwhelming.

Posted in • Search Engines News

Submitted by RL
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