You got your Google in my YouTube!
Well it's official. After a few days of speculation (which seem like an eternity if measured in number of RSS feed refreshes) Google has paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, the largest acquisition the search-focused company has made to date. YouTube will retain its staff as well as its brand name.
I'll be honest with everyone here and say out loud that this deal never made sense to me from the moment it was first speculated on. Google has a video sharing site already, even if it falls far short in usability and popularity from YouTube. For Google to let the site exist as its own independent brand does little for the Google brand name in terms of added value and, considering that, it seemed like an adversely large responsibility to take on. I know that YouTube has vast and as yet untapped potential for making money but I never really bought that search ads would be enough to really make this purchase worth it. It might pay for itself in four or five year, as Jason Calacanis, but can any of us predict what the media landscape will look like at that point?
I've even been thinking about it for days now and I still don't see the advantages for Google in this deal. The only things they've just bought themselves, to my thinking, are more work for their servers and their copyright attorneys. Google must see the upside in this but it's eluding me. It will be interesting to see how this partnership develops over the next few months. Will AdSense ads pop up on every page? Will Google Video disappear? Will this mean more sponsored "channels" on YouTube? Only time will tell and I'll be anxious to be shown how this plays out.
