Search Engines Frank Ross on 13 Oct 2006 06:55 pm
Google YouTube Purchase - Lesson in Failure?
Everyone is buzzing about Google’s purchase of YouTube this week. So I may as well add my 2 cents to the web echo chamber. When I first heard the news (or as it was first reported: a rumor), I thought - hmm don’t they already have their own video system (Google Video) in place?
Not only do they have Google Video in place, but it occupies one of the cherished front page slots on the Google home page. Google has also spent a lot of time and money promoting Google Video. It does essentially the same thing as YouTube.
Or does it? Google Video was not one of their stunning successes. It simply has not drawn the video community the way YouTube has. According to this article at ZD Net, it has a 10 percent share. Not bad I guess, unless you’re Google.
They may have seen 10% share as a failure. They probably realized Google Video was never going to compete with the huge community of YouTube. So in buying YouTube they acknowledge (although not publicly) that their Google Video was well…not so successful.
A lesson in taking a ‘failure’ and turning it around. Now Google has gone from 10% share to almost 70% and essentially owns the online Video market. Now that is yet more to make Microsoft and Yahoo say “I wish we’d thought of that!”.
– Frank Ross