Comments on: If it can't find a solution, Google should kill YouTube

Don Reisinger thinks Google needs to move quickly to fix YouTube. If it doesn't, it better kill it before it gets out of hand.

[TheAlpacaHerder]

Amen!

[johnsin]

I second that Amen! The smartest boys on the net.. weren't too smart with that purchase. haha

[someguy999]

its funny... I was banging my head against the wall when MS didn't buy YouTube... maybe the knew something I didn't (and apparently Google didnt' either).

That's probably not the case as MS did just recentlly buy that stupid flight search find (which should have been a natural progression from another failed MS purchase, expedia), probably just dumb luck.

[cephusj]

You guys lack vision. Their acquisition was about a lot more than cha-ching! They understand convergence yet they cannot monetize off of it without turning off consumers as of yet. NOONE is making money off of streaming. NOONE. Why should Google destroy a company because its not profitable at the moment. How many other companies have unprofitable pieces. Grow up, shut up or face up.

[voxblade]

good job by the way if youtube shuts down their going to boycott Google

[TheAceManHimself]

cephusj... What is the best part about your comment? The last sentence. This is good language for people who think the way you do. And comical compared with the insightful begining. So they did this acquisition for convergence, according to you. I guess that is why aol + time warner merged too? Or why Chrysler + Daimler-Benz merged? Convergence is a great justification for a million dollar loss plus, good justification for the jobs that are lost too

[QHoT]

An insightful article. Google must make a decision soon and they have lots of proposals on their desks.

It is about money, plain and simple. The original community that once existed is so small that it would be wise for them to find a safe haven soon.

There are a few people in the Executive Offices of Google that refuse the one proposal that would put them on the road to making money. Pull the plug on the "private" setting and nearly 50% of the content would disappear. Doing so would make the advertisers very happy :)

Don, you have put down a number of great points in your article. The shareholders are listening and will force the Executive members to make a choice. Why would anybody put their money into a product, that is draining resources and dollars, from other great products from Google?

Members of CNET remember what happened to the original mp3.com. Google is now facing the exact same choice. YouTube as it is, cannot and will not ever make money for the shareholders.

Sorry kids, it does cost shareholders money for you to let your cat play a piano for 10 seconds. Shareholders are those people who put their own money into Google and most are currently not amused.

[voxblade]

those aren't the only videos people come to share thoughts ideas and even drum solos .laughs giggles tutorials and many more then just that you will never understand the fredom

[ratssniff]

ok thinking about this logically its not like they actually SPENT 1.6 billion dollers on you tube they simply gave them that amount in shares. shares of big companys go in the profit ratio of 10 years so if google are wrth 10 billion then they gave away 16 percent to owners of youtube then they would have 10 years to make back 16 percent of revenue that google is worth to make it a good deal meaning that if you tube were to double the value of google then the deal would have been hugely worth it. IT WAS A SHARES DEAL so it would take 10 years or more to end up paying that much to them due to profit share. withing that time as they already have they will surely come up withways to make up 16 percent of the company possably by promoting google .com and its services alone

[jamey1974]

YouTube is one of the internet's greatest inventions. The article is well written but haven't you heard of not giving up and hanging in there,especially if you have good product. They sell commercials for TV. and everyone I know just skips them or goes to the next channel. You Tube can sell bulk-ads.Sell the ads and put them in the corner.They can also charge subscription fees for up-loaders only.Say 14.95 per month. Many of us will still pay.Free to watch.Subscribe to Upload.With the audience.Google can make it work.Break even on subscriptions and profit on the ads.It can be done.We see the screen.We skip radio and T.V. ads. If everyone thought like our parents who always say "It wont work" We would have nothing.We'd still be playing record players.

[Lerianis]

Sorry, but I've talked with some of the big anime uploaders on YouTube, and they have said they wouldn't pay ONE CENT to upload something to Youtube. Not one cent.
What they need to do is to ink deals with the big television companies, take themselves out of the television companies sights by paying them a small amount for their shows, and put some advertising on the site...... maybe a 'pre-viewing' ad.

[ayoung45]

i think if youtube make people pay a subscription to upload videos, they would just look to somewhere else since there are many other video streaming sites that do it for free. Then youtube would definately go down the drain, and i hope that doesn't happen.

[voxblade]

youtube is was not made for ads but sharing and some videos aren't crappy .youtube was originalally a free site with no revenue just freedom dont put ads on youtube.Plus people hate tv ads

[e1zish]

YouTube is still a free site.

If Google wish to make money out of the website they should make a YouTube premium offer, that allows you to do more, for example they could make it possible to download the videos that users would have the option to make downloadable. (Yes, I know there are already programs like RealPlayer that can download them but hopefully the honest people would pay for this right).

[143diamante]

They could destroy it but another similar site would spring up just as fast. Youtube is the antithesis of commercialism a place where true expression can be heard. Very threatening to big brother, the conglomerate of media corporations and the perpetually conditioned and encapsulated mind. Yes there is some questionable and vulgar material, copyright issues, but the educational material amassed is a beautiful phenomenon and a breath of fresh air to the profit driven commercial television. This article speaks as if it is a disease that needs to be cured or more accurately a world that needs to be silenced, censored and hypnotized by mindless entertainment and eternal consumerism.

[vans217]

think about it for a minute....

why does that dumb phrase appear in EVERY article i've read by this guy

[engfant]

I don't know who didn't see this coming from the beginning and to think they were going on the whole banner ad route to make the money. BORING. Why are you people worth money again?

The answer is simple yet I won't get any credit for it so why bother?

OK fine. In order for them to make the money they need to realize what You Tube is. It's a talent pool and their job is to weed out all the junk and buy up the rights to anything they deem worthy for higher production.

a 24hour American Idol.

Maybe do just that. You Tube presents American's Next 15seconds of Fame or something along these lines.

People are too greedy is the problem. Why spend money when you have billions and don't really need anymore?

[CarynSWE]

By George, I think s/he's got it!
"OK fine. In order for them to make the money they need to realize what You Tube is. It's a talent pool and their job is to weed out all the junk and buy up the rights to anything they deem worthy for higher production."
That would make YouTube's quality higher, as people put things up with an eye to bigger and better things. Google, are you paying attention?

www.xanga.com/CarynW

[engfant]

Anyone else enjoy the "hippie talk" on this? Sounds good but forget that THE MAN is paying to keep this thing going. Someone has to.

[engfant]

Anyone else enjoy the "hippie talk" on this? Sounds good but forget that THE MAN is paying to keep this thing going. Someone has to.

[matthewlanning]

This is actually an easier 'fix' than not. As an interactive agency, I *can* tell you that the Google nameplate is a compelling *draw* for major advertisers. However, to advertise with a Branded Profile page on YouTube starts at $500K! We looked into this for one of our clients and this figure was simply prohibitive. Obviously, Google is looking to get some dollars in the coffers to offset their huge investment in YouTube, but this is clearly *not* the way to go about building a business. My friends at Google...just call me. We can help you start paying this investment back.

[Renegade Knight]

"If Google is unsure of how it can turn a profit on YouTube and it still has no idea if it will be able to get a return on its investment, why shouldn't it cut its losses and do something drastically different?"

Reverse the question. What net segments does Google need to be in to be viable as a company as a whole? It may very well be that there are a couple of niche's that don't have a lot of income potential that need to exist to fuel the rest of the company. If YouTube fits that role, then it needs to stay. The question though becomes how to make it feed the rest of the company efficiently.

[danielszabo1981]

Excellent point by way of logic. Youtube does serve an alternative motive for the company -- millions of references are made to youtube every day by outside media sources (news, other sites with links, myspace pages with links, etc). If ANYTHING, youtube serves as a GREAT way to route people through googleworld.

[kgsbca]

I don't understand why they don't sell static ads on the side of the page, just as they do on google.com. So they don't make a killing, big deal, since they're not paying for content, it will still at least probably pay for the servers and bandwidth. Since the demographics of random ads would be hard to identify, they might not be able to charge a lot for the ads, but all that will do is reduce the price of the ads. since they are getting billions of views per year, even charging a few cents per view would generate significant revenue, while providing a low cost means of worldwide advertising for small companies. the ads themselves could actually be you-tube videos, which would then spawn additional ad revenue.

Google shouldn't fall into the same "must have giant profits on every product" trap that Intel has. Intel earns most of its profits on x86 microprocessors, especially those selling for more than $100, so it is very quick to kill products that sell for only $5-10, because they don't like the business model. Those cheap chips can still be profitable, but it takes work. You-tube may not be as profitable as google.com, but I don't see a lot of other free google services making any money, either.

[eldernorm]

Boy, talk about make your million today ... by 3:30 or just die...

I can think of one thing right off the bat. There are many videos that are copies of public events or personal input. These would have no copywrite or could be set up to have no copywrite.

I would pay .99 $ to be able to down load the video in mp4 format. Google are you listening??? Just like iTunes. or you can see if you can revenue share with a copywrited video, say 50-50. ???

Just leave them alone for a while. I am sure they will work it out just fine. :-)

en

[Composer_1777]

Google screwed up buy buying You Tube, because no1 is going to pay for it and Don is right , there is no way to effectively advertise on You Tube, Except by an occasional ad on the homepage. If google changes You Tube it most likely will be a loss, and some other non-profit site will just pop-up and take its place. Even that lame play-boy contest was a flop and if play boy can;t do anything on you tube, the penacle of teen sexuality and scandalous videos, how is anything else going to be successful in You Tube promotional advertising. I could be biased though, seeing as how i am not into internet life. I preferr the Real world , rather than groups of losers suffering from psychological disorders using networking sites to socialize.

[danielszabo1981]

You know, I usually find most of Ron's pieces shallow and not really "informed". BUT, in this case, I think he finally hit close to what I like to call "the mark". When it comes to the bottom line, wall-street is unforgiving and (at best), merciless.

Anyone that wants more than "18 year olds shooting milk out their noses" is usually hard-pressed to find anything of value on YouTube. Moreover, when you finally do find the batch of clips that contain the subject material you're looking for, you have to sort through a ton of crap videos before you can find anything useful (or, if the request calls for it, entertaining). It is a highly unorganized site, and I think Ron nailed the basic premise of YouTube -- Community. History taught us through Orkut (Google's failed attempt at Social Networking) that "Community" alone is not enough to generate revenue. Drilling deeper into the concept of "Community", lets talk realistically for a moment, and I'd like to pose this question for silent reflection -- How the hell could google profit from idiots that pose retarded videos? How could they profit from the people that watch those videos? Do you suppose that that target demo has anything to offer in the way of financial contribution? The answer is a resounding no. Every time. Show me someone that is rich enough to spend lucid drug money on passive online purchases via text ads, who is also dumb enough to enjoy watching the milk-shooters, and I'll show you a president who isn't in Iraq for oil.