Google + YouTube = ???
Google recently acquired YouTube for 1.65 billion US Dollars! What an effect 12 days without internet (and counting) can do to a person! Usually, I’d hear about such things from Slashdot, BusinessWeek, CNN, etc at the early rumor stages of such deals. However, when I watched CNN today, the ticker said that it’s already a done deal!
While the $10 increase in Google stock has gotten investors happy, this deal has sparked a lot of nay-sayers from the online community. In summary, there’s the camp telling Google now becoming more vulnerable to copyright infringement lawsuits and there’s the YouTube camp saying that it will lose its audience because of moderated content.
However, I don’t think Google got into this expensive deal only to get their company Toilet-Papered by opportunistic lawyers out there. Nor do I think will YouTube have drastic changes with its user exeperience.
If I guess right, Google will only use YouTube to gather more internet usage behavior and to increase the exposure of people to their services. The more that people are exposed to their services, the more chances of profitable advertising. Just like what they did with News Searching a few weeks ago.