SFC Next?

[Double D]

Google seen in talks to buy YouTube
Deal would be search giant's largest yet, setting stage for scramble in video
Ben Charny, MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:50 PM ET Oct 6, 2006


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Online video is on a roll.
The latest sign of interest came Friday amid published reports that Google Inc. (GOOG : google inc GOOG420.50, +8.69, +2.1%) is in talks to buy the privately held video-sharing Web site YouTube Inc. for around $1.6 billion, a transaction that would combine two of the top 10 video providers and raise the stakes in Google's battle against News Corp.'s MySpace.com.
Google and YouTube are conducting merger talks, which are at a sensitive stage and could fall apart, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter. A report of the talks, and the $1.6 billion price, first surfaced on the blog TechCrunch, which also cited an anonymous source

[Admin]

Thats funny you posted that lol I have been on this story all day with my other life.

Will be interested to see if google actually makes that purchase.

Very risky but they always say if you cant beat them buy them and videos.google has not gone far.
Capt John

[Deep C]

John
I'll give you $146.55 and a slightly used penn 9/0 for this site... Its all I got

[flatbottom]

thats deep cheap for ya !!!!!


john give us some inside links

[Admin]

Google seen in talks to buy YouTube
Deal would be search giant's largest yet, setting stage for scramble in video
PrintE-mailDisable live quotesRSSDigg itDel.icio.usBy Ben Charny, MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:50 PM ET Oct 6, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Online video is on a roll.
The latest sign of interest came Friday amid published reports that Google Inc is in talks to buy the privately held video-sharing Web site YouTube Inc. for around $1.6 billion, a transaction that would combine two of the top 10 video providers and raise the stakes in Google's battle against News Corp.'s MySpace.com.
Google and YouTube are conducting merger talks, which are at a sensitive stage and could fall apart, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter. A report of the talks, and the $1.6 billion price, first surfaced on the blog TechCrunch, which also cited an anonymous source.
At $1.6 billion, such a pact would represent Google's largest purchase to date.
Earlier this year, Google purchased a 5% stake in America Online from Time Warner Inc. But most of its other acquisitions have been small startups for less than $50 million.
For all its success in Internet search, Google has foundered in many other fast-growing segments of the Web like social networking and video sharing. Since its launch in January 2005, Google's own video site has failed to capture a big audience, and it currently ranks eighth in terms of monthly visitors and unique users.
If it reaches a deal with YouTube, the combined company would be a more potent force against MySpace, the social-networking Web site that has become the No. 1 provider of video on the Internet, according to comScore Networks, a market-research firm.
Rankings
By buying YouTube, Google would at least quadruple its video-watching audience and leap into third place, after the No. 2-ranked Yahoo Inc
A representative for Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., said the company had no comment on the reported talks. A spokeswoman for YouTube of nearby San Mateo didn't immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
When asked in June about the prospect of a sale, YouTube executives said they weren't looking for a buyer and would rather partner with a big Internet firm. Since then, however, YouTube's star has dimmed somewhat, and it's fallen from its perch as the No. 1 online video provider after being passed by MySpace, a unit of News Corp.Discuss
Financials

"There's a reasonable chance this might happen," said Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst focused on online media for Forrester Research.
Shares of Google closed up $8.69, or 2.1%, at $420.50. News Corp. rose 13 cents to $20.74.
If it can gain a larger audience downloading hundreds of millions more videos a day, Google would also be in a better position to attract advertisers to buy ads on its video site.
The amount spent on advertising on sites like YouTube and Google Video is expected to jump to $2.5 billion by 2010, from $350 million today, according to eMarketer Inc. Most of the spending now and through 2010 will come from the U.S., analysts at eMarketer believe.
Yet Google faces challenges, too, in doing a deal.
Copyrights
It could inherit a potentially-huge copyright infringement problem with YouTube, whose policy of allowing users to post any videos -- even copyrighted material -- has caught the attention of the entertainment industry.
Being part of a deep-pocketed larger company could be attractive for a startup company whose longer-term survival could be jeopardized by a major lawsuit over intellectual property.
By pairing with Google, YouTube may have found the financial power, as well as the technical know-how, it needs to address those concerns, Forrester's Bernoff said.
"I think YouTube's ability to survive as a standalone entity is in serious danger," he said. "Google's got engineering resources to find and take down all that copyrighted material."
By snaring YouTube, Google would be in a better position to partner with the likes of Apple Computer (AAPL : Apple Computer, Inc.
News , chart, profile, more
and its iTunes music store, according to Stephen DiMarco, vice president of marketing and client services for Compete Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm.
News of the talks may also spark new bidders to enter into the fray. Observers mentioned Yahoo as one of the top contenders. A Yahoo representative didn't return a call seeking comment.
If Google goes on to take over YouTube, the combination may spark a new wave of video site acquisitions. YouTube is undoubtedly a major prize, but there are a bevy of other video sites that have been generating lots of buzz.
Among them are Revver Inc., which unlike YouTube has in place a revenue-generating model and has a much better track record when it comes to navigating copyright restrictions, said Jay Meattle, an associate with Compete Inc.
"A deal of this size raises the stakes for so-called YouTube look-a-likes, such as Metacafe, Bolt.com and iFilm, as other major players like Yahoo and Microsoft look to expand their capabilities in online video," said Glover Lawrence, managing director of McNamee Lawrence & Co., an investment bank.
That wave of buying would, in turn, lift interest in ancillary online video interests, such as video delivery and editing, rights management, video search technologies, and viral advertising, he believes.

[Admin]

October 6, 2006
Cuban Scoffs at Google, YouTube Rumors
By Roy Mark

WASHINGTON -- "Should Google buy YouTube?" It was the first question asked of keynote speaker Mark Cuban Friday afternoon at an Online News Association conference.
"They'd be crazy," Cuban shot back.
The question came amid a swirl of blog and media stories that Google is negotiating to buy the popular online video site for as much as $1.6 billion. The rumor originally appeared Thursday night on the Techcrunch blog.
"Rumors are rumors and just that," Cuban said.
Google told internetnews.com Friday it does not comment on rumor and speculation. YouTube did not respond to telephone or e-mail inquiries for comment.
Cuban, who made his fortune in the 1990s by founding and then selling MicroSolutions and Broadcasting.com, is a frequent critic of YouTube, claiming the popular online video site will eventually run afoul of U.S. copyright laws, much like the original Napster.
The closely held YouTube of San Mateo, Calif., claims more than 100 million videos are viewed daily on its site, making it the No. 2 video site on the Internet behind MySpace.
The videos range from home productions to television clips. Even the home videos, however, use copyrighted material such as individuals lip-synching to popular songs.
"Once you go commercial, once you have to monitor for copyright violations, your whole business model changes," Cuban said. "They [YouTube] are going to get crushed."
The outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and movie producer said YouTube is begging for a massive copyright infringement lawsuit.
"The fact that YouTube is building a traffic juggernaut around copyrighted audio and video without being sued is like....well Napster at the beginning as the labels were trying to figure out what it meant to them," Cuban recently wrote on his blog.
Friday, Cuban said YouTube doesn't want to know about copyrighted material on its site.
"They monitor for pornography, so they can monitor for copyrights," Cuban said. "But they don't want to because they know half their traffic will go away."
Cuban's overall theme was that the future of online media is being transport- and format-agnostic.
"Everybody is always trying to make it about the Internet," he said. "They act like it's 1999 all over again. The Internet is old news. It just is what it is."
Since bits are bits, online media producers only need to determine how to deliver the bits, Cuban said.
"It really is about delivering the product and what the relationship is between all the parties. YouTube is a poor example of that opportunity."

[Deep C]

So does that mean my offer is good?

[loliver]

utube has begun censoring video that is critical of Islam. This is probably because of the rumored buy out and they don't want to create waves. Watch this vid by an intelligent, well-spoken woman who had her video removed, it is very interesting. Why must we all tiptoe around these Islam fanatics?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqvHK2CPB4&eurl=

[Admin]

Can you say rich !!!!There will be a big party somewhere in the world soon


Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion
Search engine leader looks to bulk up in the burgeoning online video market.
By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large
October 9 2006: 5:43 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Google, the Internet's leading search engine, announced Monday that it is buying popular online video site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.
YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, has quickly become the most well-known of several online video sites. More than 100 million videos, many of which are short videos created by the site's users, are downloaded a day on the site.
More on video

Meet the sons of YouTube
More and more online video sites are cropping up. But one, Gotuit Media, hopes to stand out by only featuring professional content. (more)

According to Internet research firm Hitwise, YouTube has about a 46 percent share of the online video market.
For Google (Charts), the purchase of YouTube gives the company the ability to tap into the potentially lucrative online video and social networking markets. Some analysts have criticized Google for relying too much on advertising tied to keyword searches.
The combination of Google and YouTube could further strengthen Google's dominance in online advertising, giving it an edge over rivals such as Yahoo! (Charts), Microsoft's (Charts) MSN and News Corp (Charts)., which owns the social networking site MySpace. Some analysts said Monday that Yahoo, Microsoft and News Corp. also had probably expressed interest in buying YouTube.
Bill Tancer, general manger of global research of Hitwise, said after the deal was announced that MySpace would now probably need to promote its own video service more aggressively on its site in order to compete with a combined Google-YouTube.
And Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital, said that Google's purchase of YouTube could be viewed as a preemptive strike against Yahoo, which has been rumored to be in talks to purchase social networking site Facebook.
In a statement, Google said YouTube will operate as an independent unit of Google once the deal closes and will retain the YouTube brand name. The companies added that no YouTube workers will lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition and that Google will maintain its own online video business.
Clayton Moran, an analyst with Stanford Group, said after the deal was announced that Google was paying a rich price for YouTube since it has yet to generate a sizable amount of sales. But he said Google needed to do something to become more competitive with MySpace, which currently ranks in second place in online video market share.
"My sense is that Google is paying a full price considering that YouTube is still unproven in regards to its revenue potential. But considering the success of MySpace it was clearly worthwhile for Google to take this step," Moran said.
In addition to giving Google a stronger foothold in the burgeoning social networking market, YouTube could also help Google extend its highly successful text-based search platform into video, which could wind up being even more profitable.
Pyykkonen said that for this reason, Google may be able to justify paying such a high price for YouTube.
"Google has talked a lot about video and video search without really having anything particularly going on there. I would think that a lot of advertisers would be willing to pay a premium for a video search ad opposed to paid search text," he said.
First step?
During a conference call, Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said the YouTube deal would be one of "many investments" that Google planned to make in online video. He added that the combination of Google and YouTube would make Google more desirable to advertisers.
"This is just the beginning of an Internet video revolution," he said.
There is some debate about whether or not YouTube or other user-generated video sites will be able to attract the interest of top advertisers. But Tancer said that big corporations may be forced to start spending on ads tied to such clips.
"I don't know if advertisers will have the choice going forward. They'll have to start taking risks. People more and more are going to use brands in user generated content," Tancer said.
He mentioned the popularity of the so-called Diet Coke-Mentos Experiment video, a clip that featured two men creating elaborate gushers of Diet Coke by dropping Mentos candies into bottles of the soft drink. Mentos eventually wound up becoming the exclusive sponsor of the video on Revver, a privately held online video site that sells ads tied to user-generated videos.
Reports of a Google-YouTube deal first began to circulate on Friday. Shares of Google rose about 2 percent on the Nasdaq Monday after posting a similar gain on Friday. The stock edged slightly higher in after hours trading.
Before the deal was announced, some analysts expressed concerns about the litigation risks involved with YouTube since some videos posted on the site infringe on copyrighted material owned by major traditional media firms.
To that end, YouTube truly became a part of the pop culture lexicon earlier this year after people started posting pirated versions of "Lazy Sunday," a skit on NBC's sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" on the site. NBC eventually forced YouTube to take down links to this clip.
But Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of YouTube, said the Google deal will allow YouTube to focus even more on copyright protection since Google has more financial and technological resources to dedicate to the issue.
However, more and more media companies have recently begun to partner with YouTube. In fact, NBC announced a partnership with YouTube earlier this summer to promote shows from its new fall schedule on the site.
And on Monday, YouTube announced separate agreements with broadcast firm CBS (Charts) and music companies Sony BMG Entertainment and Universal Music Group to show video from these companies libraries. CBS and Sony BMG will share advertising revenue with YouTube. Terms of the Universal deal were not disclosed.
Google also announced an online video deal with Sony BMG Monday as well as one with Warner Music Group.
Quigo: The next Google?

[rich]

Admin. If they give you the 1.6 billion for this site you are taking all of us fishing right?