YouTube.com: Big Cleats
November 24, 2008
YouTube.com seems to have new winter tires with big cleats. First, YouTube.com staged a live event. You can read about it here. I was less impressed with the content and more impressed with the fact that Google, like Microsoft, had to resort to third parties to handle the load. Video is expensive, and the GOOG will have to crack the code for revenue in order to keep the bills from exceeding the revenue. Next, SeekingAlpha reported that YouTube.com was the “third largest search engine.” SeekingAlpha said here:
YouTube has long been acknowledged as the far-and-away frontrunner in online video, with close to 63 million US-based visitors in October 2008, according to Compete. Less well-known has been YouTube’s status as a top-ranking search engine. Last month, YouTube served nearly 770 million search queries, making it the third largest search engine, according to Compete’s October Search Market Share.
Google has some patent documents that provides insight into the monetizing options available. The financial winter that is settling upon online means that Google will need some snow tires with big cleats. These are the big, chunky tires with savage rows of grippers.
At the same time, Hulu.com continues to be praised for its professional programming. In addition, Blinkx, another video search engine, is trying to buy Miva (the old FindWhat.com) to get some ad traction itself. My take on all this is that TV is coming to the Internet.
Wonderful.
I don’t watch TV. Another vast wasteland is being created I fear.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2008
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One Response to “YouTube.com: Big Cleats”
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For some recently published figures (released Dec 19) on general online (UCC) user created content video market including YouTube
covering OECD countries but not accession countries
country list at http://www.oecd.org/countrieslist/0,3351,en_33873108_33844430_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
OECD Information Technology Outlook 2008
http://www.oecd.org/document/20/0,3343,en_2649_33757_41892820_1_1_1_1,00.html#HTO
see “Sample data” Table 5.1 Market size and growth, 2007 or latest available year
or see graph page 7 in summary 300KB at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/37/26/41895578.pdf
but for greater explanation:
download fulltext 8.5MB
http://browse.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9308041E.PDF
Annex 5.A1
Adobe pagination page 285
and Chapter 5
Online video is a huge growth and risk area for storage cost, revenue creation, net stream share, and search developments.
If Google can convert video including tv shows and news or documentaries into text and make it searchable and relevant as information, profitability will be right around the corner.
After that, why not automatic radio program transcripts or that phone call you thought was private?
Question will be how much of this will be free and how much for a fee?
YouTube, as is, is probably sufficient for the exposure of new and upcoming users into the G-spot. Some of it is even educational, like Frank Zappa interviews, authors@google and other lectures.