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Rumor Of The Week: Google To Buy YouTube
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington rates his own rumor at about 40
percent likely, just so we get that out of the way. The "completely
unsubstantiated" rumor is that Google is finalizing talks to acquire
web video phenomenon YouTube.
Arrington received the information via email, confirmed the rumor
and the price ($1.6 billion) with venture capitalist firm Sand Hill
Road. Earlier reports have valued YouTube, which streams about 100
million videos per day, as high as $2 billion, even with its
million-dollar-per-month bandwidth fees.
The commentators at TechCrunch are split on the rumor, some calling
it "ludicrous," others exploring the possibilities of why it would
make sense for Google to acquire YouTube. The first thought, at
least from here, is that Google has to do something with all that
cash.
"Google is sitting on huge amounts of cash," says Sebastian Borek,
"their shareholders demand Google to continue their story. Also the
Internet is a winner take it all business, that by nature drives
consolidation of the market - sometimes earlier then expected."
It's no secret that Google has been moving from search engine
company to media company, and controlling a market like the one
YouTube commands would play straight into that strategy. Adding
YouTube to Google Video would give Google tremendous video market
share, adding to their search dominance.
Some wonder if Google would be willing to take on the potential
copyright nightmares that come with YouTube, and how long after
acquisition that lawsuits began pouring in, considering Google's cash
mound.
Arrington admits that these rumors usually turn out to be false, but
feels it is his duty to report when major VC firms are buzzing about
something.
Though some question the value of YouTube, the company itself is said
to have set a $2 billion price tag. Why the discount, if this is
true? MySpace and Yahoo are overtaking the video scene (another reason
for Google's interest in video), which puts YouTube in third place
among video sites.
Commentator Jason L. Baptiste brings Apple into the equation, and
presents his own theory:
1) google buys youtube
2) youtube and google deploy video adwords ie- contextual/"vidtextual"
ads postroll, monetizing the content.
3) google delivers youtube via Apple's iTV, to get it to people on
their tv.
"We were all calling News Corp. idiots for buying MySpace a year
ago," said Baptiste, "now it's a steal."
Crank Up The SEM Keywords
David A. Utter | Staff Writer
Yahoo Store aficionado Rob Snell, who speaks and has written about
Yahoo's online marketplace, wants to make sure everyone has
converting keywords so they can make lots of cash.
No guarantees of course, but as far as Snell is concerned in his
post on the Y!Store blog about converting keywords, it is as close
to a sure bet as anyone can get in search engine marketing.
"Converting keywords are the search phrases folks look for when
buying what you sell," wrote Snell. "You can find these nuggets of
gold in your merchant order emails, inside referrers from exporting
your orders, inside your Manager's Sales reports, in paid search
conversion tracking reports (if you buy ads with Y!SM or Google),
and inside reports of some third party analytics software (if you
use their software)."
That is the basic concept of the converting keyword. If someone
searching for that keyword ends up on a site and makes a purchase,
it counts as one. Snell recommended three things the prudent
webmaster needs to do in reviewing a site:
Check your site for the converting keywords: When you get a
converting keyword phrase, make sure that the words from that
phrase actually appear somewhere on your store...
Check your search engine rankings: Check to see if a page from
your domain ranks in the top 10 search results for that keyword
phrase.
Check your paid search campaigns: Finally, check to see if you're
buying that keyword phrase in your paid search campaigns...
Snell suggested making sure that a new converting keyword phrase
appears in the text of a website. "The easiest way to do this is to
search your store using built-in Store Search," on Yahoo, he noted.
Also, pick the most relevant page for that converting keyword phrase.
When a customer lands on the site from a search for that converting
keyword, the content of that page should be relevant to the
customer's query.
While this may be basic information for the more seasoned SEM pros
out there, it never hurts to recheck things. One never knows if a
nicely performing page can do a little better.
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