One of Forbes’ best moves in setting up this new conference was the booking of YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley for a panel that just happened to fall a couple of weeks after the announcement that his company was being acquired by Google. (Appropriately enough, the session began soon after the Barry Diller explanation of the economics of buying a company with “paper.”) It was up to Jennifer Feiken, though, as director of multimedia search for Google, to provide insights about how YouTube might actually make money for Google.
Google Video II (my designation, not theirs) launched at CES with a burst of content could be downloaded for a fee. Google then decided to test the sponsorship model. The result, Feiken said: “Many more people watched the content and revenue substantially increased … What we knew from that test is what people wanted is free.”
Hurley on NBCU: Asked about the fuss over NBCU’s heavily viewed “Lazy Sunday” SNL clip, Hurley spoke of sending NBCU a letter a week after it stated to gain steam, asking if someone at the network had posted the video. He said that had been the case with a Nike video so thought he would check. If the network wasn’t responsible, he said they would take it down. Two-three weeks later, he said, a letter came from someone at NBCU saying they’d look into it. Eventually the request came to remove it (and about 500 clips) while, on a separate track, a few months later NBCU wound up partnering with YouTube on to post video that looked illicit. It was, Hurley said, “an interesting chain of series of events.
Hurley on copyright: It’s especially interesting in light of the comments he made about copyright and taking down content. “We don
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