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The Battle Over YouTube

msnbc.msn.com — Clock is ticking for the Silicon Valley star. YouTube has raised $11.5 million in venture capital, mostly from Google backer Sequoia Capital. But its operating expenses, which it doesn't publicly disclose, are undoubtedly massive and growing.

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  • EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19I'm guessing that Youtube will start putting ads before some clips which are over a certain time length. I wouldn't mind having a ten second - or so ad before an 11-30 minute video. It's those short 10 second to three minute clips that I want left alone though.
    • nayr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11hell, a ten second video clip before a minute clip I wouldn't mind; I just want them to STAY! they're a part of the internet now!
    • 0101010, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5i think i'd stop using youtube if they started doing that, those are VERY annoying
    • Xenif, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9What's more annoying, watching a 15-30 second ad before movies, or going to YouTube.com and seeing "Please put your quote below to buy this domain, we are all out of money and this is how our Venture Capital companies are trying to reclaim some of their money"
    • Laurentvw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or an ad after the video.
  • foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3"are undoubtedly massive and growing."
    A grammar question.
    Is it pronounced "un-doubt-ed-ly" or "un-duby-teb-ly"?
    • Abjure, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Two different words, in this case it's 'un-doubt-ed-ly'.
    • TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4it's pronounced undoubtedly
    • Garda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@TenebrousX
      are you trying to be helpful?

      Youtube is a great service and it would be a shame were it to disappear. They have such great potential, if only they could find a revenue model.
  • acslat3r, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Well I expect ebay to end up buying them. Why? Who knows but why did they buy skype? Exactly.

    I pity the foo that buys youtube.
    • rockintom99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Um, skype sells minutes to make calls outside of the US, which many people actually use. Plus, the free calling to phones *within* the US is a temporary thing, and should be gone pretty soon.
    • bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Just because they bleed money now doesn't mean they'll always bleed money. YouTube founders never said that they wanted to make a trillion dollars in their first year - they said they wanted to build an awesome service, and then make money off of it. Just like Digg. I think it's fair to say that they are halfway towards achieving that goal.
    • zybch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amazon lost money year after year, until suddenly they became profitable.
      Now youtube doesn't sell anything physical, so it will probably be a lot harder for them to reach a stage where they are breaking even, let alone actually making anything.
    • bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Except for the fact that they are the most talked about and may be (numbers confilcting right now) one of the most viewed sites on the internet. Eyeballs will eventually equal dollars.
  • billyliberty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They would only be able to put ads in front of original content though, right? Only those things created and submitted by a particular user and not little clips or anything else that has been taken from any other source. That has to be why they haven't acted yet on this problem. They're huge because people can use Youtube as a depository for interesting or entertaining pieces taken from other sources, yet they cannot make money off of those very same clips.

    • EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That is covered in their TOS. When something is uploaded the user who uploaded it states that the content is their own and that they are liable for anything that happens to youtube if legal action is taken. I'm guessing that also means that it transfers the copyright of the video from the user to youtube as well.
  • xelloss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would just take less and cash out, I think the people that started it could live off a few billion.
  • mikebritton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm a little surprised one of the TV networks hasn't shown interest in buying them. The big three? Ted Turner? Come on, one of these mega-entities has to see the potential!
    • merm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In case you haven't noticed, TV Networks are still largely too afraid of the internet to try and use it. The networks are dinosaurs.
  • eauxnguyen, on 10/29/2007, -6/+1I think YouTube should buy digg since every third post on Digg these days is a link to YouTube anyway. Cut out the middle man.
    • ZeonZumDeikun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That makes no sense.
    • samfrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't know if thats trollbait or if you are just an idiot.
  • videoCT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ivW5h5C4c

    maybe it will do some of these things
  • ZeonZumDeikun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'd put my money on Yahoo buying them out. They bought both Del.icio.us (Social bookmarking) and Flickr (Social photo sharing) I'm sure Yahoo has at least thought about gobbling up YouTube to hold a place in the video sharing market.
  • edillcyde, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Read about this on an article in PCMAG last month issue i think..

    it says there that youtube will be force to charge $100 to 1million users to use youtube for them to get back in track..
  • pseudoastronaut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3why not use the finger printing software to locate videos and then inserting relative ads by copyright holders. i.e. inserts of fall out boy's latest cd when some one is lip syncing to Dance, Dance. Thus promoting the band in a postive original meaningful way without being compromised by my 12-year old sisters air guitar.
    • ZeonZumDeikun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That would be very easy to implement, since the videos are organized into categories. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.
  • bocephusMcguire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Seems like they could do something in the passive ad area -- like Google Adsense. With the number of viewers they get, it would at least generate some positive cash flow.
  • subversive1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its CEO, Doug Morris, ominously told investors last month that "copyright infringers" like YouTube and MySpace "owe us tens of millions of dollars."

    Yeah,how much of that will the original Artists actually see?
    • danieleran, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1How much revenue do the programmers behind Photoshop make?
      How much of the revenue of the hamburgers you flip do you see?

      Artists aren't entitled to trillions of dollars made by media companies unless they sign contracts demanding it. For every talented artist, there's 500 others waiting to sign their lives away for a living wage.
  • Mome, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2They'll only spend the money on whores and drugs. Keep them in the poorhouse.
  • CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Google should buy YouTube before some company like NewsCorp does.
    • ZeonZumDeikun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed. Look what they did to MySpace! It's horrible! Agh!
  • Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So we'll be seeing more ads on youtube.....I'm more than willing to see 1 ad to watch a video but not anymore than that.
  • Pic0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0They should hire a person to delete all the dupe videos. That would cut down on storage space...
    • TherealObadiah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They should hire someone to eliminate all the dopey Keith Olbermann and John Stewart videos. That would wipe out 7/8th of their storage costs. Of the remaining videos, 1/16th is vacuous dreck, and the other 1/16th is mildly entertaining.
  • andrewrchambers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0whatever they do with regards to ads i hope they do it gradually... i don't wanna go to youtube one day and find 20sec clips at the beginning of each video and the page littered with ads..
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