How come people are dumb?
You look around the world, and see all sorts of stuff happening. And then the headlines report that somebody paid way too much money for YouTube. First problem: there are many things in this world way more important than this. Second problem: how come people are dumb? Time for a rant:
I don't get it that someone would pay billions of dollars for an emerging technology platform that is really only part-way to the solution. Who's money are they using? How did they get so much money?
YouTube is cool - if only for the fact that I've now got better stuff to watch than the crap that cable serves up. The programs are shorter, cheaper, and more entertaining. But that's where it stops.
The phenomena that really deserves attention is the boom in user-generated content. If we agree with the 1% rule (1% of a community make content, 10% interact with the creator, and the other 89% only consume content), we can anticipate a whole lot more people wanting to get out there with stuff they think is interesting. [Side rant: who defines "interesting"?] While many of the "creators" who have posted content to YouTube need 40,000 volts and counseling about their fetishes, the fact remains that there is some amazing stuff going on there.
But how could Google be dumb enough to pay squillions of other-peoples'-money for the junky platform and ill-considered business model that YouTube represents? Is first-to-market really worth that sort of premium? Riddle me this: as bandwidth and compression technologies advance, what would prevent a smart operator going to market with edited streams, random jumbles, better quality reproduction, in other words - a viable media platform that replaces terrestial television?
The fact is that some-one is going to do this, and soon. Look for developments in this space that take the media model, wrap it with a better way of controlling what you see (think of a remote control for a digital platform), figure out an association algorithm better than user-generated meta-data so you can turn it into a "channel", and then monetize that concept. Frankly, what YouTube represents is a search engine tied to a continent of servers with little ability for users to exercise sensible (time-lean and specific) discretion. And someone's going to lose about $1.85 billion on a dumb investment...
Or am I an idiot?
I don't get it that someone would pay billions of dollars for an emerging technology platform that is really only part-way to the solution. Who's money are they using? How did they get so much money?
YouTube is cool - if only for the fact that I've now got better stuff to watch than the crap that cable serves up. The programs are shorter, cheaper, and more entertaining. But that's where it stops.
The phenomena that really deserves attention is the boom in user-generated content. If we agree with the 1% rule (1% of a community make content, 10% interact with the creator, and the other 89% only consume content), we can anticipate a whole lot more people wanting to get out there with stuff they think is interesting. [Side rant: who defines "interesting"?] While many of the "creators" who have posted content to YouTube need 40,000 volts and counseling about their fetishes, the fact remains that there is some amazing stuff going on there.
But how could Google be dumb enough to pay squillions of other-peoples'-money for the junky platform and ill-considered business model that YouTube represents? Is first-to-market really worth that sort of premium? Riddle me this: as bandwidth and compression technologies advance, what would prevent a smart operator going to market with edited streams, random jumbles, better quality reproduction, in other words - a viable media platform that replaces terrestial television?
The fact is that some-one is going to do this, and soon. Look for developments in this space that take the media model, wrap it with a better way of controlling what you see (think of a remote control for a digital platform), figure out an association algorithm better than user-generated meta-data so you can turn it into a "channel", and then monetize that concept. Frankly, what YouTube represents is a search engine tied to a continent of servers with little ability for users to exercise sensible (time-lean and specific) discretion. And someone's going to lose about $1.85 billion on a dumb investment...
Or am I an idiot?
posted by Terry at
3:54 pm
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