Google snaps up YouTube
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Monday night the web-based video company YouTube was acquired by Google, the notorious search giant. The deal was worth over a billion dollars in Google stock.
Because I am writing for a weblog and not a newspaper, I feel compelled to offer my opinions on this deal, despite the fact that it is not my weblog. There are a few interesting aspects to this deal. Firstly there's the fact that it is being paid for in stock, not cash. I'm no business analyst, so I don't know what, if anything, to read into this. Maybe Google is trying to avoid using liquid assets...in which case maybe they're readying themselves for another takeover? Just idle speculation there, as I have not the slightest idea what I'm talking about in the field of economics.
Secondly, and far more ominously, it seems to me that the YouTube acquisition epitomizes Google's changing of attitudes. I've talked about this before, but it seems like the people who are noticing this are very few, so I'll talk about it again. It seems to me like Google is gradually and tragically turning away from the creative, iconoclastic, idealistic, "we-can-do-it" attitude that started their success, and becoming more and more like their big brothers, Yahoo and (oh, dread) Microsoft. Google's original strategy was always to take something that already exists, make it better, and beat the competitors on sheer guts and brillance, not by throwing billions of dollars at the project or buying out the competition. They demonstrated this beautifully with Google Search, the majority of their other search-based projects, and Gmail, which is the crowning example. But it seems like the more money they make, the more they drop this approach. They've bought out Keyhole (Google Earth) and Picasa (Picasa ;-). Additionally, it's been a very long time since they've released a truly exciting product. I have no problem with that. It's folly to expect any company to roll out another Gmail every other month. But I do have a problem with Google's product releases: they feel that they have to have an image of youth and extreme productivity, so they continue to overextend; to release into continual beta products that are not innovative and are bad copies of existing products, and to not update other failed beta projects that badly need tweaking. But this buyout was really worse than all of this to me. The buyout did not just represent lack of innovation, which I can understand (I can't remember the last time I wrote a brilliant program used by millions of people), but a laziness and sloth that I find unacceptable in a company that I've adopted like my firstborn son.
They couldn't beat 'em, so they stuffed them with money and confiscated their brand.
So that you know who to yell at in the comments, this article was written by Joseph Wilkinson, standing in for Alex Morganis.
Because I am writing for a weblog and not a newspaper, I feel compelled to offer my opinions on this deal, despite the fact that it is not my weblog. There are a few interesting aspects to this deal. Firstly there's the fact that it is being paid for in stock, not cash. I'm no business analyst, so I don't know what, if anything, to read into this. Maybe Google is trying to avoid using liquid assets...in which case maybe they're readying themselves for another takeover? Just idle speculation there, as I have not the slightest idea what I'm talking about in the field of economics.
Secondly, and far more ominously, it seems to me that the YouTube acquisition epitomizes Google's changing of attitudes. I've talked about this before, but it seems like the people who are noticing this are very few, so I'll talk about it again. It seems to me like Google is gradually and tragically turning away from the creative, iconoclastic, idealistic, "we-can-do-it" attitude that started their success, and becoming more and more like their big brothers, Yahoo and (oh, dread) Microsoft. Google's original strategy was always to take something that already exists, make it better, and beat the competitors on sheer guts and brillance, not by throwing billions of dollars at the project or buying out the competition. They demonstrated this beautifully with Google Search, the majority of their other search-based projects, and Gmail, which is the crowning example. But it seems like the more money they make, the more they drop this approach. They've bought out Keyhole (Google Earth) and Picasa (Picasa ;-). Additionally, it's been a very long time since they've released a truly exciting product. I have no problem with that. It's folly to expect any company to roll out another Gmail every other month. But I do have a problem with Google's product releases: they feel that they have to have an image of youth and extreme productivity, so they continue to overextend; to release into continual beta products that are not innovative and are bad copies of existing products, and to not update other failed beta projects that badly need tweaking. But this buyout was really worse than all of this to me. The buyout did not just represent lack of innovation, which I can understand (I can't remember the last time I wrote a brilliant program used by millions of people), but a laziness and sloth that I find unacceptable in a company that I've adopted like my firstborn son.
They couldn't beat 'em, so they stuffed them with money and confiscated their brand.
So that you know who to yell at in the comments, this article was written by Joseph Wilkinson, standing in for Alex Morganis.
Comments
Hey, could you write in shorter paragraphs? I hate reading long paragraphs :) thanks.
