On 10/10/06, ravi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
At around 10/10/06 1:17 pm, Jim Devine wrote:
> any thoughts on Google's purchase of YouTube (if I can bring this
> topic up via Google's gmail)? Is it possible that the high price is
> the sign of bubblish financial markets?
>
I just don't get it, from a non-economist perspective. What is the value
of YouTube? It's not the content... it's user contributed and mostly
copyrighted material anyway that Google may have to abandon. There is no
eyeball lock-in. There is no technology barrier. It feels like a
decision out of the old .com days.
Well Google is buying YouTube from the money they made from their very
dot-com like IPO. If Google is worth a $140B market cap, YouTube is
well worth the $1.65B price tag. Also the "No eyeball lockin, and no
technological barrier" arguments apply equally well to eBay and
MySpace. Of course there are differences - arguably a critical mass
popularity means a lot to community-oriented eBay and MySpace and less
so for YouTube. Still being a frontrunner in a critical segment like
online video delivery surely is worth something. And what is Google
going to do with all that cash anyway, invest in oil futures?
-raghu.
