Amazing that this is even possible.. http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/08/technology/bc.youtube.payday.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007020806?cnn=yes
I need someone to explain this to me... 1) A few guys figure they'll create a site that shows users vids on the web. Is this an original idea; I really don't know, but maybe that's not the point. 2) Google has mucho money. 3) User start sharing their videos. 4) Google figures they can draw even more traffic and advertising dollars if they can control the vid site. ???
Nope, not an original idea. I worked on a site that was nearly identical to YouTube and much more popular early on. YouTube gained so much traction because they converted videos to flash and were able to scale. That plus they got heavy investments from Sequoia to cover the massive server/bandwidth bill, and the connections got them a lot of press - especially with that really big, viral Saturday Night Live clip. There's so much more to the story than "some guys built a website and now they're worth xxx million dollars". It involved timing, a little luck, and all the right players. The buyout also included some alleged payoffs and lawsuits. I've said from the start that the deal makes sense for Google+YouTube. Google has the ability to make back its investment very quickly.
Thanks for the response. Does this have something to do with being able to download the videos and play them on specific (portable?) devices?
By converting the files to Flash files, it got rid of compatibility issues. The overwhelming majority of Internet users have flash installed in their browsers, so there aren't browser/OS incompatibilities that might crop up with Windows Media Player files or Quicktime files. Also, by making ALL of the videos a single format, there was only one "embed" code that was needed to place the content on other sites. Different formats would mean different codes for the users to put the videos on MySpace, etc. Finally, by making the videos "streaming" flash files where the video is obfuscated by the player, it looks MUCH better to the copyright holders, since the site doesn't look like a file "swapping" site where users can download files. That doesn't mean the copyright issues are anywhere close to over though.
^ Mike, I have thought about why others like PutFile, etc. didn't get as big as YouTube, despite YouTube being a late comer. I understand (and agree) with your points on having Sequoia backing, but on the flash point, what were other providers (including yourself) doing. I remember watching PutFile - once you got past the user delay (for not being a subscribed member), it seemed like the display of the video was very much like YouTube. Small screen, streaming, etc. In other words, not a noticeable difference (at least from the outside looking in) on form and format. Was the technology different "behind the scenes"? Very interesting to get perspectives from somebody so close to the situation, so thanks in advance for your continued thoughts.
Funny, I know the guy who runs PutFile. PutFile actually just got acquired this week: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070206006192&newsLang=en He's a really young guy, early 20s. The weak dollar kind of sucks though. As long as you have the appropriate codecs, the end user really wouldn't see a noticeable difference. I forgot one other key issue with flash - the video itself is "clickable" - that helped viral growth tremendously. When a user put the video on MySpace, anyone could just click on the video to go back to YouTube. Don't think that it's a mistake either that there's a small play button right in the middle - if people missed that play button, they got sent back to the YouTube site. The back end architecture is completely different on a site like PutFile as opposed to YouTube. I've managed sites set up like PutFile, worked on sites set up like YouTube, and built and worked on sites that were kind of a hybrid of the two. In very simple terms - with a file hosting site like PutFile, everything's hosted in-house. The server that the file is on is the same whether the video is on MySpace or the hosting site itself. There's no conversion, so that complexity isn't an issue. On a site like YouTube, after being uploaded, the video is queued for conversion. Once converted, the file resides on a YouTube server, but it is served by a CDN (Content Distribution Network) with nodes all over the world. The file is either cached by the nodes or actually ends up residing on the nodes' storage.
