Fred says that the Flash player and slick syndication stuff on YouTube is why they won. That certainly helped, however Fred's 100% wrong when he dismisses the impact of stolen content and I can prove it to you in one link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=lazy+sunday
The real reason why YouTube won is because they matched great SEO with stolen content that was not available anywhere else.
Mainstream media has been creating a huge vacuum on the Internet for over a decade. When stolen content becomes available--years ago on Napster, today on YouTube--it races off the charts. In YouTube's case it also races to #1 on Google.
SNL didn't put their videos online and the price they paid is that they lost the #1 Google ranking for their content to YouTube.
Do a search for SNL Video and YouTube is #1 and SNL is #2--how on earth is that fair? How on earth can VCs back--or in Fred's case praise--a company that is involved in massive piracy for personal gain? Now don't go giving me that "if NBC doesn't put their stuff on the Internet users will/information wants to be free" line of BS. YouTube did this so they could get rich quick--it's a business not the wikipedia or OurMedia. This is a site with advertising on it back by VCs.
If YouTube makes $250M from a sale their founders and VCs should give $225M of it back to the content owners like NBC and Loren Michaels who they stole it from!
Here is what the YouTube story is going to look like:
1. Create extremely simple technology in a couple of weeks.
2. Blow $1m in hosting costs a month.
3. Enable the stealing of people's content for a year, while turning a blind eye to piracy.
4. Claim they never, ever looked at their logs or their own sites top 20 list to see that it was filled with stolen content.
5. Sell the company and let someone else deal wth the IP headache.
If they sellout this will be the Internet industry's hit and run, and I'm gonna write the book.
If someone buys YouTube they will not be rewarding entrepreneurship, they will be rewarding piracy and they should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone else in the video space played by the rules, YouTube gave content holders the finger while shrugging their shoulders pretending they didn't know. Please.... really.
YouTube stole their way to the top while other folks behaved themselves.
Sinister but brilliant... but we as an industry shouldn't reward such behavior.
How YouTube Won: Great SEO + Stolen Content (or "the biggest hit and run in the history of the Internet")
Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 1)2. Entrepreneurship is exploiting a situation for financial gain, YouTube has not broken the law. Sure you can say it's unethical, but hey, when was the last time an 'ethical' dot-com startup existed? (well OK, maybe we can count you on that list)
MySpace had thousands of automated profiles, only after News Corp did MySPace remove them, why would they? when you're hoping for a buyout you want your membership numbers as high as possible.
Is it ethical when a business sacrifices the user experience to keep page views? we all know those ads aren't getting the same attention as a fresh article but hey, $$$.
Youtube played the game brilliantly. Their technology isn't that amazing but they made it smoother to upload files than the competition and they won. You can hate the ethics but you've got to respect the thinking behind it and what they're achieved.
Posted at 2:29PM on May 11th 2006 by Adam
3. Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree with you on this. I hate the use of flash on YouTube. Also, I hate the fact that whatever I'm looking for is on it. I guess what I'm saying is that I hate myself for using it so much. The best case scenario is someone writing a non-flash based YouTube with flickr-like simplicity.
Cheers,
fbz
Posted at 3:47PM on May 11th 2006 by Fabienne Serriere
4. Pirates vs. Content Providers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxi6NeMGiwU
Posted at 6:36PM on May 11th 2006 by Dimitar Vesselinov
6. I'll have to agree with you Jason, I think that rights, and licensing will be the single biggest problem with ALL of the sites that claim to be video sharing and distribution sites. That content in question is owned by media companies, they own the rights to distribute that how they want. If YouTube is distributing content owned by someone without permission and profiting from it, then they owe the company whose content brought traffic/value/revenues.
It is irresponsible to hide behind members of the service.
7. jesus christ jason... will u let this one die?
(or are you being paid by chad & steve to keep drumming up the PR? if so, go right ahead making their day ;)
seriously dude: every great new wave of creativity in music, art, literature, & entrepreneurship has launched itself off the backs of previous great creativity. plagiarism & copyright violation were as rampant during the Renaissance as they are now in the age of the Web 2.0 Mashup.
furthermore, your contention that a) the technology is simplistic and b) the content is completely stolen are both off-base.
it takes talent & skill to both create the tech they built, and to scale it to support the HUGE audience they've attracted. as i've mentioned before, the same folks i worked with at PayPal who cut their teeth working at battling eBay and huge growth aren't neophytes -- and in fact the current battles / symbiosis with MySpace feel a lot like the old eBay challenges before Meg caved in and bought us out. furthermore, if the tech were so simple, why haven't OTHER video sites succeeded as well?
second, while i may agree YT has focused more on community postings and less on policing content ownership, other sites similarly utilize their community to gather content -- so that's not a singular advantage of YT. and it's also not exclusively borrowed content... there's definitely a significant amount of original content, or content with ownership that isn't enforced and/or the owner doesn't care. is that stealing, or is it simply giving people what is widely available? for someone who makes his living off of other people's words & links, methinks thou dost protest a bit much...
ultimately, i think people are recognizing that of the hundreds of video-hosting sites out there, YT was successful for many reasons -- and they should get credit for coming up with a good concept, a great design & implementation, and terrific execution & scalability.
they should be rewarded by whatever the market thinks their value is worth, and rightfully so -- as with Flickr before them, they've created something incredibly fun, sticky, and enjoyable for millions of people. there's nothing sinister about it.
all your barking about stolen content and easy-to-copy tech is starting to sound a bit self-serving dude... why not spend your time building your own stuff up, instead of tearing others' down?
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
Posted at 12:05PM on May 12th 2006 by Dave McClure
8. I don't think YouTube will get acquired that easily. Read this: http://sramanamitra.com/blog/277. It's full of crap. If it is bought, it should not be bought for very much at this point ...
Posted at 8:08PM on May 17th 2006 by Sramana Mitra
9. you know with posting about stealing content you just stole content from here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684832666/102-9339112-3005741?v=glance&n=283155
so how much money did you give him for using his content and linking to his content ? none exactly, and how many others did you "quote" or link to without paying them or use as part of your research or background info for past articles ? and did you forward them any payment? no exactly-you are technically "stealing" content yourself so I wouldn't call the kettle black man especially when his content is what 90% behind your post ? some people's children....the double standards have to go. if you look at the bottom of your own webpage you can see "All contents copyright Jason Calacanis"- so is his content now your content ? I think not which technically makes any other persons content you used copyright infringement on your part.
Posted at 12:22AM on Jun 2nd 2006 by some dude
10. Check this out for a recent opinion from the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/07/eye_on_youtube.html
Posted at 3:42PM on Jul 14th 2006 by Josh
12. Interesting post and interesting comments on SEO and stolen content constituted success for YouTube.com
However, I believe the YouTube creators were just plainly ignorant to the copyright issues at hand. Again, this is a first of it kind website, and to predict users would in mass upload infringing content requires a lot of foresight.
Secondly, I am guessing the founders of YouTube the lack of knowledge for copyright laws and their penalties (2X damages) to predict and even notice this event taking place. I find it highly unlikely they placed infringing content there themselves. Of course, as they grew in popularity they must have received letters of infringement.
Thirdly, as they grew and the VC came onboard the VC would have made an executive decision with regard to the copyright infringement. I am guessing (as previously mentioned) they would continue to disregard the infringement issues since the VC’s exit opportunity would occur before a class action suit is filled. However, if they had solutions to, or solve the infringement issues they could have boosted their pre-acquisition valuation
In retrospect, looking back from Oct 2007 we can see their decision to ignore infringement issues and push for an acquisition was wise, since Google acquired them for $1.65 Billion. The solution to this problem would have been a simple web-system which would allow users to tag content for infringement, and put it up for review. The review could have been conducted by paying a third-party at minor cost per video.
Again I have much respect for the YouTube technology and the market they have created.
Brian Glassman
www.TechRD.com
Posted at 2:00PM on Oct 13th 2007 by Brian Glassman
13. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Don't piss them off. You can complain, but you'd be complaining more if they took their service down and many people would have to pay 100s in hosting for their videos.
They benefit greatly from stolen content but, if artists or whoever sees their stolen content, YouTube will take it down almost immediately.
Posted at 12:49PM on Jun 21st 2008 by Personal Trainer
14. Interesting point of view, let's wait to see your book.
YouTube is snow ball that is growing everyday with or without copyrighted material, even after ViaCom demand the traffic has not decrease according to HitWise.
And I agree, copyright is copyright.
Posted at 2:36PM on Jul 14th 2008 by Posicionamiento en YouTube
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1. I think that's a little unfair - I tried Google Video first and found YouTube later, and I use YouTube because they're immediate. Waiting six days for my video to go up is ridiculous.
I'm not going to try and say that YouTube doesn't get a boatload of pageviews from stolen content, but I don't think that it invalidates the service they're offering. Sure, it's simple, but they were the first ones to do it right, and that counts for a lot.
i.e. their business will not crumble once the content issues get sorted out.
Posted at 1:32PM on May 11th 2006 by Jason Preston