Frazier Blog

The Internet rumor mill scores a point.  They correctly predicted Google acquiring YouTube before it was officially announced.  While many have questioned Google’s decision to buy YouTube I believe there are many positive aspects.

1.    It gives Google exclusive access to advertise on YouTube.  And Google’s system of advertising makes sense on YouTube. You’re watching a video about water skiing and bang you see a ad for a waterski boat. Contextual ads work great on a YouTube type site.
2.    We all know YouTube will be sued for copyright infringement.  While Google already has copyright problems of its own. Google news and Google books.  It has much deeper pockets then YouTube and much more bargaining power to settle disputes and hopefully licensee content.
3.    It fits Google’s mission statement of organizing the world’s information. If they want to stay number one they must continue to be at the bleeding edge.
4.    By putting legal content acquisition and advertising together we could have a very nice system. Free legal TV content with standard google style ads. And may even slightly peskier ones. Taking a route like ABC has with their free TV shows with minimal ads that you are forced to watch. Yet not to a point where it makes the user mad.
5.    Picture quality perhaps with more server space and bandwidth video quality can increase. (although Google video also suffers the same problem)

Con’s
1.    Google already has a video system.
2.    Content providers are not being so friendly yet.
3.    With ease of bit torrent and p2p making people watch ads or pay could be a very hard business model to make profitable.