In a press release today, Google announced that it had agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. This is an amazing amount, given the reality that YouTube has been giving away storage and bandwidth to create a huge community. I don’t know how YouTube makes money, or even if it does. It looks like, given Google’s ad program based on keyword searches, this will eventually become an advertising-supported community.
As you can see here, and here, and here, and here, I’ve been using YouTube for a few weeks, and I have been amazed at how easy it is to set up and use.
I haven’t really explored that much using YouTube channels, or groups, or anything else other than uploading videos to incorporate into this blog. OK, I have watched a few of the Diet Coke and Mentos videos, and the guy on NBC’s Today show after recording his attempt to Cancel AOL.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=xaaAYVUWP0I]
The fact that this is so easy to incorporate into a blog, to convert almost any video file format to Flash, and it’s all free, means it is going to continue to be used a lot. People have uploaded something like 100 million videos, if I remember correctly. It’s interesting to consider whether these gathering places will be important as ways for information providers to get their offerings “out there.”
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