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Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

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Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#21

Post by jfoutz »

Loopy wrote: post #7

This probably doesn't surprise anyone but their current business model is terrible. Why would anyone click on a text based ad which distracts them from the video they want to watch. I don't see why anyone would voluntarily do that. At some point google is going to have to bite the bullet and have video ads. Even if they are on after a video is shown they would be far more effective and desirable for advertisers.

Because, if youtube is ever profitable, they will be sued. over and over until the end of time.

much better to just miss breaking even. Shovel all the user data into doubleclick, and all the video data into crazy data mining algorithms.

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#22

Post by DarkShikari »

abstractbill wrote: post #4

He cited research from Credit Suisse Seriously? People are still citing that hack-job of an analysis? It didn't even take peering into account - it was ridiculous.

It's true across the tech community; someone can post a completely wrong analysis of pretty much anything and as long as it fits peoples' expectations, they'll keep citing it even if it's wrong, and it's incredibly aggravating.

Some common examples include Windows having a lower TCO than Linux, Theora being better than H.264, and of course practically anything in the realm of politics.

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#23

Post by RK »

ori_b wrote: post #15
vijayr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if I am searching for a particular scene (say a 2 min scene), in a particular episode of heroes, in a particular season?

How can you automatically detect that from a video? And if instead of automatically detecting it, you just let the users tag the video, why does text search not work? Finally, even if they manage to get a useful video search working, why do they need Youtube for it, when they can crawl the web for video?

One thing you can search is closed captioning, like SnapStream does:

http://www.snapstream.com/tvtrends/

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#24

Post by tom_rath »

req2 wrote: post #11
tom_rath wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the more you use Google's free services the more you cost them. It's the non-techies who are clicking their ads which are making money for Google so, for all their technical marvels, Google's revenue source(s) are pretty narrowly defined. I can almost picture Steve Ballmer slapping his cheeks with a mocking "Oh, no! Google's dominating yet another money-sucking cost pit! Whatever shall we do?!?!" before bur…

Have you seen youtube comments? They probably are coming from the non-techies.

...and yet, populated with hordes of non-techies, Google still hasn't been able to move YouTube from substantial loss to minimal profit (even when the world was in the middle of a "Web 2.0" tech boom!).

Now that we're in a bust, what does that tell you about their future prospects?

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#25

Post by kierank »

DarkShikari wrote: post #22
abstractbill wrote: post #4

He cited research from Credit Suisse Seriously? People are still citing that hack-job of an analysis? It didn't even take peering into account - it was ridiculous.

It's true across the tech community; someone can post a completely wrong analysis of pretty much anything and as long as it fits peoples' expectations, they'll keep citing it even if it's wrong, and it's incredibly aggravating. Some common examples include Windows having a lower TCO than Linux, Theora being better than H.264, and of course practically anything in the realm of politics.

I think this is getting more and more common because of so-called "tech" bloggers not fact-checking their stories and generally overhyping social media (twitter/facebook/youtube etc..) because of their relative simplicity compared to something like the intracacies of bandwidth economics.

Unlike traditional journalists (though clearly not the NYT!) these guys don't have black books of knowledgable people to call up and ask on a certain issue.

Social media makes everyone's opinions and views a lot more equal (when really they shouldn't be) and these stories eventually bubble up to traditional media, which have the view that since the whole "blogosphere" is talking about it as fact; it must be fact.

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#26

Post by _cbsz »

jfoutz wrote: post #21
Loopy wrote: post #7

This probably doesn't surprise anyone but their current business model is terrible. Why would anyone click on a text based ad which distracts them from the video they want to watch. I don't see why anyone would voluntarily do that. At some point google is going to have to bite the bullet and have video ads. Even if they are on after a video is shown they would be far more effective and desirable for advertisers.

Because, if youtube is ever profitable, they will be sued. over and over until the end of time. much better to just miss breaking even. Shovel all the user data into doubleclick, and all the video data into crazy data mining algorithms.

On the surface, your argument has intuitive merit. However, you don't sue a business unit (Youtube), you sue a company (Google). Google is profitable.

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#27

Post by zandorg »

My general calculation on YouTube is this:

-At Google Search, you do a search and get a text ad. Each text ad is about 400 bytes, each search page (with your results) is around 5k. Serving up the webpage is done from another site.

-At Google YouTube, you do a video search and get a text ad alongside it. Each text ad is 400 bytes, each search result you look at (eg, video) is about 2MB.

So, are you going to make as much, after paying for bandwidth, with a factor of 400 (2,000,000 / 5000) difference in bandwidth?

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#28

Post by jfoutz »

_cbsz wrote: post #26
jfoutz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, if youtube is ever profitable, they will be sued. over and over until the end of time. much better to just miss breaking even. Shovel all the user data into doubleclick, and all the video data into crazy data mining algorithms.

On the surface, your argument has intuitive merit. However, you don't sue a business unit (Youtube), you sue a company (Google). Google is profitable.

On the surface, your argument has intuitive merit. However, youtube isn't a business unit. it's a subsidiary.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/look-ahead-at-google-... http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6153267-7.html

edit: sorry, that was sorta snarky. and things may have changed since the viacom lawsuit. (it was a subsidiary in late 2008)

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#29

Post by philwelch »

tom_rath wrote: post #18
moe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Ballmer stopped laughing at google sometime between them crawling out of their garage 10 years ago and them approaching MSFTs market cap today.

Until GOOG approaches MSFT's revenues, I don't think Microsoft will worry. If there's a 'war' between those two companies, Microsoft is probably handling it as one of attrition. Google has one strong source of revenue (search advertising) and has been thrashing about for years in an attempt to build at least a second source without notable success. Microsoft has many different sources of revenue and continues to buil…

Somehow the anecdotes of Ballmer throwing chairs and threatening to "fucking kill" Google run counter to your speculation. Either Microsoft is getting worked up over a non-threat or Google is more dangerous than you think.

Re: Youtube remains unprofitable 3 years after Google acquisition

#30

Post by _cbsz »

jfoutz wrote: post #28
_cbsz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the surface, your argument has intuitive merit. However, you don't sue a business unit (Youtube), you sue a company (Google). Google is profitable.

On the surface, your argument has intuitive merit. However, youtube isn't a business unit. it's a subsidiary. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/look-ahead-at-google-... http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6153267-7.html edit: sorry, that was sorta snarky. and things may have changed since the viacom lawsuit. (it was a subsidiary in late 2008)

Touche! Didn't do my homework on this one.
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