Saw this yesterday on CNN. Again Google is expanding, trying to justify such a high shareprice. And I like the idea. Google, worlds most powerful seach engine and No.1 adsite buys YouTube worlds mostwatched video site. google needs ads, Youtube needs funding etc – an alliance of convinience unified by a common goal and purpose. Both of which are to do with Web 2.0. Scoble has a good write up here. He has an interesting analisis why Youtube is more popular than Blinkxs ( and I too had to triple check my spelliong of the name):
Also, the home page is WAY overbearing. Too many moving things. And one design principle I learned in college: pick ONE thing and make that twice as big as anything else on the page. YouTube wins here. Why? Because your eye needs something to enter the page with. If everything is the same size, as it is on Blinkx, your eye feels uncomfortable. Doesn’t know where to look.
He also make this interesting point. Coming from him as a student and connisour of new age media ( blogs, podcast vblogs and the like), its interesting:
Blinkx has lots of big-name videocontent. Movies. TV shows. Etc. YouTube has lots of “small-name” videocontent. Kittens. Goofy videos. We’re all looking for different kinds of content. Stuff to impress our friends with that they probably won’t have seen. Here’s a hint: your friends and family have probably already seen the latest Lost. But they haven’t seen the latest cute kitten video. Microsoft makes this mistake too (remember IE 4 with ActiveDesktop? What was there? Big name media companies. No small guys. I wonder if Microsoft will learn that it’s the small guys that make an experience different and interesting?)
Never thought about that. Again this is how the market regulats itself. Both ends of the market need satisfying. Youtube gets it nearly right with its mix of videos from the crowd. Those that dont get the mix right end up in the cold.
Microsoft is too big to end up right out there becuase its product range is so broad so s to ward off blows easily but the effect will show on individual products (examples, anyone?). Microsoft also has the money to throw at the problem. Youtube didn’t have that then yet did a great job. my compsrison is unfair due to different business models and operating enviroments (you too, scobe), but its valid nonetheless.
With google behind Youtube, I’m looking foawrd to hearing of new features ( purely to shake my head in amazement at thier
Random Musings 