Does Google Want to Control Internet Video? - A Good Thing or a Bad Thing?
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Does this mean that Google and YouTube are going to put all the other video sharing sites out of business? Not by a long shot. Look at search: somehow Yahoo, MSN, and Ask keep hanging in there, and tons of vertical and alternative search engines have sprung up in the shadow of Google, offering users depth and focus in exchange for Google’s “grab everything” approach. There is no question that experiments by other parties will continue.
On the other hand, this has to make other video sharing sites that offer incentives to their creative users more than a little nervous. As one commenter has observed, with Google’s deep pockets behind it, YouTube could even offer 110 percent of advertising revenues earned per video for exclusive content as an incentive, at least for a while. If it did that for long enough (and made it clear that it was intended only for an introductory period), habit might take over.
If that happens, the best model as far as market development might be either online auctions or MP3 players rather than search. With MP3 players, Apple came to the market late with the iPod, but it was so user-friendly that it all but took over. With online auctions, eBay was one of the first, but enough people started using it that no other auction site has managed to get much of a foothold. Go ahead, test yourself; Google returns more than 25 million results for the phrase “online auctions” (without quotes). Without looking, can you name even five of them, not counting eBay and IT Marketplace? I remember Yahoo Auctions, Amazon Auctions, and Ubid; I also know there’s a site focused on bead-related auctions, but I can’t remember the URL.
There are further implications to consider, especially if Google incorporates Google Checkout into YouTube (such as paying for premium content or to see videos without the commercial pre-roll). However you look at it, the two announcements from the world’s biggest search engine and the world’s biggest online video site will change the way we look for and view videos online. Viewers may be annoyed by the ads once they go live, but the changes could be excellent news for content creators, advertisers, anyone searching for videos online – and of course, Google’s and YouTube’s bottom lines.
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