Comments on: Why Steve Jobs should buy YouTube

By: ben

ben — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:01:05 +0000

good idea, steve jobs should read this and buy youtube ;)

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free RAZR cell phone — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:49:03 +0000

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By: Joe Black

Joe Black — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:56:01 +0000

Why would Apple buy an overhyped, loss-making Bubble 2.0 company whose popularity is 90% due to its status as a repository for stolen video content? Similar sites have existed before, and they will exist long after YouTube is gone. Apple could build its own in a month. Why doesn't it? Because it wouldn't make them any money, and neither would it drive its hardware sales.

So this really is a dumb idea.

By: youtoube.com is great

youtoube.com is great — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:00:28 +0000

Nice Story! THX!

Steve Job must BUY youtoube, or someone else will do!

By: iluvgustavo

iluvgustavo — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 02:08:13 +0000

DAT IZ LIKE SOOOOO STUPID YOUTUBE SHOULD STAY DA SAME !!!!! >=}

By: David Chartier

David Chartier — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 04:41:17 +0000

1) Apple buys things, not Steve Jobs. Steve is the CEO and PR figurehead, and it's very unlikely that he is the actual guy who signs on the dotted line.

2) No one knows how YouTube is making money. Not even they do. They aren't raking in the cash from placing a few Google and banner ads on their site. Digg.com's been at it for quite a while longer and doesn't suck nearly as much bandwidth (a few lines of text vs. boatloads of video, anyone?) as YouTube, and even Digg - by Rose's own admission - is barely breaking even.

3) It's highly unlikely that Apple would purchase YouTube as it's an intellectual property nightmare. One only needs to comb a few of the big tech RSS feeds to see all the lawsuits being hurled at them from property owners big and small. It'll probably be a snowball's day in hell before Apple, the knight in shining armor for the digitally-floundering music, TV and (hopefully soon) movie industries, would be allowed to so much as think about purchasing a copyright trampling community as YouTube.

YouTube might be a digital media-related company that doesn't seem to have much of a direction or business model, but that doesn't mean they're prime for an Apple acquisition.

By: Floh

Floh — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:38:25 +0000

"But buying YouTube, Steve Jobs could leapfrog to the top of the heap. After all, he would end up with immediate presence within the ranks of the top 50 web properties (one that’s still growing at a rapid clip)."

Um, #12: Apple Computer; #40 Youtube.com I guess he does not need another company with "immediate presence within the ranks of the top 50 web properties"

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:17:42 +0000

this is pure bitter jealousy, but i can’t believe these youtube creators are set to get anything near a billion dollars for this idea. yes, its simple and addictive and perfect for online advertisment delivery – but its not brilliant. how about a bagillion dollars for the guys who invested blogger? thats a much better idea with much longer legs. i wonder what google paid for that deal… couldnt have been anywhere above 50 million i doubt. the minute youtube falls into the hands of a legitamate company (hardware, software, or media/news) its going to lose it all. see napster. boooooo to these lucky bastards! ;)

By: fred

fred — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:04:47 +0000

that guy who used my name and URL is not me.

identity theft on gigaom

send in the identity police!

By: Karl Channell

Karl Channell — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:19:29 +0000

I would say the biggest problem is the fact that the service is based on Flash and not QuickTime. Apple woud definitely not want to promote a competing proprietary format like Flash over its own QT technology. Copyright would be another major hurdle. Apple also always prefers organic business growth over company acqusition. Overall a good thought, but I don’t see it ever happening.

By: mark

mark — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:11:56 +0000

hey genius any idea what they pay for in bandwidth? how about the licencing required for all that copyrighted material?

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:21:02 +0000

Why would any large public company expose themselves voluntarily to YouTube's forthcoming copyright lawsuits? Napster was sued into submission by the RIAA; will this be any different when the MPAA and Television Association of America are involved? I don't think untested common carrier status will offer sufficient defense -- but this would be a worthy topic for a blog post -- and it would be better if posted by a legal journalist, or a blogger with a modicum of legal sense (sorry Robert).

Speaking of which, Robert -- this is the second post in a week on what company should buy YouTube? What perverse interest do you have in seeing YouTube acquired? Let them be. So what is Moritz and Co are willing to buy-in at a $1B private valuation. iFilm went down for $50M last year…

Given: they didn't have the traffic that YouTube has from user-generated content driving their uniques through the roof via sent urls/links, but they did offer a picture of what video businesses look like. I would expect that YouTube has had the opportunity to exit several times already and it was a "suggestion" from the "experienced" board that selling would be too early…and they haven't so far. So why now?

What I expect we will see is YouTube gain share through the holidays. 2006 will be theirs. But 2007 will be the one in which large media companies will slowly begin to figure out how to run online video ops, and begin to bring their IP Video offerings to market without concern for YouTube. The players that will make out well, will be the incumbents. YouTube will continue to thrive -- but as a site for amatuers to find their audience. They are doing great things at YouTube -- including proving a market, and demonstrating best practices. But are they moving fast enough? That I doubt.

Silicon Valley and your VCs gets so caught up in the huff you create…think as though you're an exec at MTV, or NBC in LA -- what's more likely to get you fired: buying an overpriced website, or moving too slowly to get your online offering up?

E'nuf

By: DanoX

DanoX — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 03:20:58 +0000

Real? there is nothing that Real does that Apple can’t do better.

By: E. Ortiz

E. Ortiz — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 03:18:08 +0000

List for us please all the companies that Apple has acquired up to this point. Given the fact that 95% of acquisitions fail, perhaps a measure of Job’s business accumen could be found in not taking your advice. What is YouTube other than a bunch of clowns juggling trifles? Is there value here other than our easily escaping attention? This value, certainly, could be re-created from a position of true business leverage; something SJ certainly understands. I would be surprised to see anything of this sort come to pass.

By: steve

steve — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 02:21:58 +0000

Who would want to buy this hideous site and bleed millions voluntarily? YouTube will be gone before the end of the year.

By: Johnathan

Johnathan — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 01:22:42 +0000

I agree with the above comment - the best idea would be for Apple to buy Real. They can use Real's Windows-based expertise to optimize iTunes on Windows, and integrate Real's audio & video subscription business into iTunes.

Real is already moving most (?) of their Rhapsody audio over to AAC format anyway, and Apple could simply support RealMedia's other codecs via a QuickTime plugin.

Real would also buy Apple a connection to the Linux community. Perhaps this would finally allow Apple to bring iTunes to Linux.