[Article] Google 'among suitors pursuing Youtube'

Ruu_Old

Gootube could be on the cards. snipped from MSNBC.com

YouTube, the fast-growing video website, has received a flurry of takeover offers in recent days from suitors including Google, the web search specialist, say people close to the company.
The wave of interest comes on the heels of reports that Yahoo, a Google rival, had offered to buy Facebook, a social networking site geared towards university students, for $1bn.

"There have been a lot of offers," said a person close to YouTube, with bids in the range of $1.5bn to $1.6bn.

News Corp, which last year bought social networking site MySpace.com for $580m, has looked "very closely" at YouTube in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the discussions.

However, they said the media group decided not to make an offer for YouTube because of a $1.5bn minimum price tag being demanded by YouTube's backers, and because News Corp had decided it could develop YouTube's features on MySpace. News Corp declined to comment.

Rumours that Google had offered $1.6bn to buy YouTube surfaced yesterday morning on TechCrunch, a technology blog. News Corp was included in a list of potential suitors in a recent article in the New York Post.
YouTube, which allows users to upload and share video clips, is the latest in a string of young companies focused on "user-generated content" to attract the interest of big media and internet companies in recent months.

News Corp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, kicked off the craze when it bought MySpace last year. Although the site's $580m price was considered steep, the deal has since come to be seen as a master stroke.
In spite of intense interest, Chad Hurley, YouTube's co-founder and chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times two weeks ago that the company was not interested in putting itself up for sale.

"We're just going to continue to build the business on our own," he said. Mr Hurley said his strategy had the backing of YouTube's financiers at Sequoia Capital, the venture capital group that was also an early investor in Google.
"That's why we went with Sequoia, to have a chance to build a great business," Mr Hurley said. "They're not a VC that builds small companies."

Capt'n Midnight

what was that phrase from the .com bubble

"business plan ? - the exit strategy is the business plan"

Build a successful web site with lots of users then sell out.

or that other phrase

"show me the money"

how could these sites be profitable - without so many ads it drives people away.

Giblet

It has a userbase, why couldn't it be profitable? They could slap ads all over it. It won't be the same though, we'll see premium content and half of the good stuff will be removed due to copyright issues.

Ruu_Old

Looks like Google got it for $1.65bn.

MrJoeSoap

Terrible news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm

This will surely leave them more open to potential copyright lawsuits etc. YouTube has been a great resource, but I think it's days may soon be coming to an end.

Endurance Man

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Terrible news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm

This will surely leave them more open to potential copyright lawsuits etc. YouTube has been a great resource, but I think it's days may soon be coming to an end.

How does youtube get away with hosting tv episodes at the moment? I catch all the latest south park on there but wondered how comedy central was not doing something about that?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Endurance Man wrote:

How does youtube get away with hosting tv episodes at the moment? I catch all the latest south park on there but wondered how comedy central was not doing something about that?

As far as i know, law stateside goes that you can't be sued by a copyright holder if you take something down when requested, and they can't sue without having requested previously, so youtube are fairly safe legally, provided they remove material on request from the copyright holder

Endurance Man

sean_keevey wrote:

As far as i know, law stateside goes that you can't be sued by a copyright holder if you take something down when requested, and they can't sue without having requested previously, so youtube are fairly safe legally, provided they remove material on request from the copyright holder

Odd, you would think comedy central and whoever makes these shows would be all over this? Guess they havent caught on yet, hope they dont either, south park ftw .

astrofool

South Park has always been one of the programs almost encouraged to be on fileshare, dating back to the early days of episode sharing, I think it came about when they did the episode (Christian Rock hard), taking the piss out of all the musicians campaigning against filesharing (no gold plated fish tank). That doesn't mean they'll change their mind tomorrow