Jason Fried On Why YouTube Was A Good Purchase
Jason Fried of 37 Signals just posted an article on why YouTube was a good purchase for Google.
It’s not the technology, it’s the experience. It’s simple sharing. It’s easy embedding. It’s reliable viewing. It’s “when I share a YouTube video with someone I know they’re going to be able to see it no matter which browser, computer, or OS they have.” That’s what makes YouTube YouTube.
Other arguments I’ve heard around for awhile, and a viewpoint I held for myself was that YouTubes technology is almost trivial to reproduce. The Netscape team (who are brilliant, btw) did it in a weekend, and I think even came up with a superior product. But Jason is right; that’s not the point.
The point is the brand, and the point is the audience. YouTube has both. You can’t create that in a weekend. I was going to say that you can’t buy that, but Google just did.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Great point. The brand is getting bigger by the day (even before the purchase). And who would say the purchase of millions and millions of people as an audience is a waste of money? I think you guys both hit the nail on the head!
October 22nd, 2006 at 1:42 pm
You’re right about the branding. Since the web will be full of multi-media in the years to come, google’s purchase shows that they’re planning to be in this thing for the long-haul. Forward thinking is how successful companys stay successful.