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116 Comments
- jo42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+48Advertising. Just like Google makes all its bijillions. What else?
- brianjameskirk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+47Porn.
- multivariate, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41A lemonaide stand outside their offices?
- reclusivefreak, on 10/12/2007, -9/+43They could rename it "YouPube".
- muyuu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3530 seconds! are you insane!!
- JimmyRyan, on 10/12/2007, -8/+35There really should be a porn version of youtube.. They would make a KILLING!!
YOULUBE.COM!! lol - scarybunnyman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30REALLY?????? thank you captain obvious
- heymark, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22one-click wonder.
haha, I love it. - mcottier, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Damn you for showing me http://www.pornotube.com/
- forumreader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I don't know. A lot of people use YouTube as a place to hold their blog videos, like a video version of Flickr. I think while the mainstream stuff might be filtered out, YouTube could still remain as a place for easy and free video hosting.
- crilen007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Google doesn't own the webpages it has in its index.
- hemphill81, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"The cost of running a site that streams millions of videos a day is adding up -- the monthly bandwidth bill alone is at least $300,000 to $400,000, industry insiders say." So at 3.6 mil a year I could see possibly losing money.
- bu11et, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9$900 million? Are you sure that isn't $900 thousand? Nearly a billion dollars on bandwidth and storage every month seems a bit extreme
- burtonbe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'm not convinced a "featured" section would work very well. http://lulu.tv has come up with a way more innovative way to make money. Basically, to upload videos you must have an account, that account cost a monthly fee. Part of that fee goes into a "pot" which you can win back depending on how much your video gets viewed. Here's the description from their site:
"80% of the Shareholder Account fees get put in a cash pool. You create a video and upload it. It gets played... you get paid, based on your share of the traffic."
Will it work? I don't know, but it sure sounds like a good idea. Maybe youtube should try something like this? - critic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Sell T-Shirts.."I uploaded my vid to YouTube and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt!"
- MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Pray for somebody to buy it?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7http://blog.forret.com/2006/05/youtube-bandwidth-terabytes-per-day/
Says $.6 - $2 million / month. - fishdan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Well, seeing as they pay nothing for their content, and only have bandwidth expenses for uploads and when they get traffic, I don't see how they can NOT make money. I'm not sure what the google click payout relative to bandwidth is, but I'd assume it works for them.
- zmikez, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13YouTube will not make money, they have no plan to make money. They only have two choices.
1. Get bought by someone (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft,etc.) who can use it for a 'loss leader'.
2. Slip into obscurity before they slip into bankruptcy. - zmikez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7On TWiM a few weeks ago they quoted a report (I don't remember the source) that said that YouTube was burning a million a month in bandwidth charges. Bandwidth is NOT cheap when you are serving the content.
- paulmike3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6must be nice being a $10 billion a year company with no revenue...
- jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Its not nearly as simple as you think. You are talking about copyrighted material owned by someone else being used for advertising. Most companies won't like that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Agreed. The only problem they're probably having with that is the fact that there aren't THAT many companies who are seeking online video advertising. But I believe that it's growing.
Either way, YouTube should be able to create enough ad revenue from traditional advertising models to make a profit. - electrostatic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't think it's so much of a question of "how" they're going to make money. Their biggest problem is if they do start making money, all of the TV/movie studios come knocking looking for their cut. Almost all of the popular videos on YouTube are movie clips and TV shows. If those companies are starting to get upset about giving away their copyrighted content for free... imagine what will happen when YouTube tries to profit from it.
- EricAnderton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Basically, to upload videos you must have an account, that account cost a monthly fee. Part of that fee goes into a "pot" which you can win back depending on how much your video gets viewed. Here's the description from their site:"
Awesome idea. Just like the CIC (Central Intelligence Corporation) database in Snowcrash! - taylorhayward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No.
This kind of reminds me of Netscape Navigator coming out before Microsoft threw a billion dollars at making a browser. Both were free, but Microsoft is a bottomless pit of money.
Google is also a bottomless pit of money (for now), and I foresee that any attempt YouTube makes at generating income that also fetters the user experience (ads before the videos, a web page swarming with adds, etc.) Google will capitalize on by not doing pissing off users. Google doesn't need to make money, YouTube does.
1) YouTube tries something crafty to make money
2) Users are not impressed by craftiness and move to Google video (v2)
3) ???
4) Profit!
You know folks there will always be room for you in the Google Borg. Link in. Get mined. Tune out. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Bbear is right. That pornotube site has more webcam videos of fat losers jerking off and gay sex than sexy female videos. I don't care about that, the problem is that they don't separate the two! You click on Teens and you get some fat guy jerking off in your face! That is not good design!
- hemphill81, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4When you start charging for a service that was free you will lose so much of your user base look at the Ricky Gervais podcast.
- enders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Guys thats obviously a typo. There's no way anyone's paying that much per month, or per year even.
- MicrowavedH2o, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5exactly!
...duh... - b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i tend to agree. my wife and i would use youtube to show the kids some children's videos from time to time (thomas the tank engine etc etc) and almost all of this content is now being removed. i am starting to think youtube will end up like napster....as soon as they go "legit", no one will care about them
- JonDiggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I don't know alot about the costs of serious bandwidth like that, but i'd imagine its alot, i probably watch on average 3-5 youtube videos a day, some not even displayed on youtube.com
- themurph2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4$900 million dollars a month? Can you please post a link to back that up? How in the hell would they get funding to blow through $900 mil a month?
- b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4not sure why your comment was downgraded, you may be closer to the mark than people are willing to admit.
online ads, even video ads, do not generate much revenue in isolation. the major players (yahoo, google) achieve profitability through volume. per user/session they show dozens of ads, and also have a very low serving cost (since they are mostly serving text). they also have locked-in the ad budgets of most of the big prospective advertisers. they also have the infrastructure to provide all of this bought and paid for.
youtube will have to charge a substantial premium for its ads, even above what yahoo and google might charge for a comparable video ad. i'm not sure what advertisers are going to bite. - zmikez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The 900Mil was either a type-o or a comprehension error
- dotdan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree with the three second ad idea. People will just go to another site, rather than sitting through it.
YouTube could sell that, and offer an inexpensive paid service for anyone who watches loads of videos. Or let people sponsor a video and remove the ad.
Nothing annoying, and people have plenty of options. - burtonbe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jamesgamble
If they are doing so well, then why are we having this discussion? - b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2true, both yahoo and google can turn a sprint into a marathon. they can keep running a loser service long after youtube's funders have packed it in.
and note that youtube does not have an exclusive set of material...anything i have seen so far on youtube could easily be served elsewhere. youtube will need exlcusive material if it wants to differentiate itself. this may be hard considering that right now they are copyright infringers on a massive scale themselves. - Cocoluv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Has anyone thought long term about the direction of YouTube? Has anyone thought that YouTube could be the next Fox, NBC, or CBS? Once TV's go IP YouTube could essentially be the internet cable company. Moreover, they already have their built-in TV guide - tags. The communities reinforce the popularity and spread of what's cool to watch. How will they make their money? Advertising and revenue sharing arrangements with the content producers. YouTube is the quintessential internet content distributor in a one-to-one, many-to-many market space.
- wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've heard that same figure, a YouTube has a bandwidth bill of a million (US) a month. I don't even want to think about how much they are spending on hardware (servers, routers, and the like). I'd imagine that their burn rate is probably something on the order of 1.2-1.5 million US per month. They need to come up with a way to get lots of money, fast, or they will be another internet flash in the pan.
- jukhau, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wouldn't compare Youtube to Napster, specially since it's quite difficult to download vids to hd and who would look 640x480 resolution video from tv?
Youtube is great for viewing, finding old & forgotten stuff and then buying same thing on dvds, if possible.
Google Video is quite lame compared to Youtube, it's more like copycat cloning of good idea with bad design and functionality. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It doesn't have to be a 10 second full fledged advertisement.
Just a few frames advertising a product. Nobody is going to complain if their 5 minute youtube viewing has to begin with a 2 seconds McDonald's ad. - teckjunkie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Boobtube anyone?
- Hellomoto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2they can always whore themselves for money
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2[quote]I don't know. A lot of people use YouTube as a place to hold their blog videos[/quote]
I have noticed it turning into a sort of Video Forum for young teen attention whores lately. They're actually sending videos to each other, with people commenting on them. It's almost like Digg, but with videos instead of stories.
If the Telcos weren't extorting the internet, and we didn't have imbeciles like Ted Stevens in office, there could be alot more done with this concept. - oyourmom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Consumer - "So how are you making profit?"
Business - "VOLUME!" - infinitesnowboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2But with the pot of money idea, people who just like to upload a few random videos for a few friends will be only hurting themselves moneywise by uploading their videos. And isn't one of the best things about youtube the vast amount of videos?
- jukhau, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I just love youtube like it is now, no ads (maybe there is, but not anything disturbing), I've had change to see lot of videos I never would have seen otherwise. I don't have any great idea for their business logic, but I guess they will come up with something, if necessary. :)
Youtube is best what has happened in internet for long time. Videos run fairly smoothly and you can embed them basically everywhere. I guess this dream will end soon. - MrViklund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2YouTube wont make money. Not as much so it covers their bandwidth costs. Ads? No way. Then you have to cover the site with ads. YouTube will stay Online as long as stupid investors belive in it.
- mikepanic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It is free now... you can post youtube movies w/ no ads in myspace... everyone does - if they put too many ads in, make it too hard for the bloggers and myspace to use it or try to charge money, people will stop using it and wait until something else comes to take its place.
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