Google to buy YouTube in $1.65 billion share-swap deal

[Bob Crabtree]

Internet-search giant Google has confirmed that it's to buy the YouTube video-sharing site in a US$1.65 billion (£888 million) stock-swap deal.

More in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline.

[father smurf]

1.6 thousand milion - not 1.6 bilion.

[dangel]

1.6 thousand milion - not 1.6 bilion.

Well if you're being pendantic - the US sees a billion as 10^9, the UK views the same as thousand million or milliard. So if it's in USD and a US deal it's perfectly correct to say a 'billion'.

[Bob Crabtree]

1.6 thousand milion - not 1.6 bilion.

Since the UK treasury and almost the entire UK media - web, print and broadcast - also now uses the terms "one billion" to mean one thousand million, I think I'll stick with using the term in that sense, if it's okay with you.

Or, indeed, even if it's not.

My thinking here, is not to concern myself with what's right or proper - in a linguistic sense - but with what people understand terms to mean.

And that's what guides everything I write.

For the record, here is a PDF related to the last budget and in which the term billion is clearly used to mean 1,000 million.

And this is how the BBC's site headlines the YouTube takeover story:

Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn


Oh and a slight aside, I'd recommend Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue to all of a pedantic persuasion who insist on making out that "Queen's" English is somehow superior to "US" English.

Yes, yes, Bryson's a Yank, but, hey, they're not all liars on a world stage.


Bob (who says all this despite being a professional pedant, of sorts)

[dangel]

Oh and a slight aside, I'd recommend Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue to all of a pedantic persuasion who insist on making out that "Queen's" English is somehow superior to "US" English.

Well I was with you until you started thinking the Americans had it right - that's plain treason.

Consider yourself duely warned - UKIP have be informed of your actions.

[Bob Crabtree]

Well I was with you until you started thinking the Americans had it right - that's plain treason.

Consider yourself duely warned - UKIP have be informed of your actions.

Where's that smiley for loose bowels?

Oh, there it is

[Mike Fishcake]

1.6 thousand milion - not 1.6 bilion.

And if you're being pedantic, also there are two "L"s in Million and Billion.

[Bob Crabtree]

And if you're being pedantic, also there are two "L"s in Million and Billion.

You mean, of course, two "Ls".



Er, but can we all stop, now, please, and comment on the substantive matter of the YouTube acquisition?

TIA

[nichomach]

How about "Google weewees $1.65bn up the wall"? YouTube's only real asset is other people's copyrighted works - and how long are Universal, Time Warner, Sony et al going to sit on their hands while Google rapes their catalogues? As long as it takes them to hit their attorneys' speed dial methinks...

[dangel]

I can't say i really care - aside from Google having carved themselves out a monopoly with the deal i'm not sure if such sites are any more than a bit of fun to link to in email. Perhaps if they throw enough ads over the site it'll earn them money?

[nichomach]

The Reg

Mark Cuban was labelled a "Cassandra" for his skepticism about Google's takeover of revenue-free video sharing site YouTube. But the thing about Cassandra that people often forget, is that Cassandra was right.

Cuban's skepticism looks a lot more justified today. The Wall Street Journal reports that a group of the largest media companies are co-ordinating their negotiations with the copyright-busting site. General Electric (which owns NBC and Viacom), Rupert Murdoch's News International and others are pooling their litigation efforts. The Journal reports that Time Warner isn't a member of the group, but it's just as keen to ensure there's a settlement in its favour.

"You can assume we're in negotiations with YouTube and that those negotiations will be kicked up to the Google level in the hope that we can get to some acceptable position," Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons said last week.

YouTube has evaded such intention, because with zero revenues it hasn't been worth pursuing.

Now YouTube's dilemma looks like this. The only way Google can justify the $1.65bn acquisition is because YouTube currently has a lot of traffic. Large volumes, it argues, should eventually be monetised successfully...er, somehow.

But YouTube only has a lot of traffic because of this copyright-breaching content, most of which it's carrying illegally. By contrast, the much vaunted market for "user generated content" will be a paltry $850m by 2010, Faultline reported here on Friday.

All of which means that Google writes off its acquisition as a white elephant, or it strikes a deal. There's no other option. So all roads lead inexorably to negotiations with the media owners - on terms that Google can't set.

Did Google's lawyers really perform due diligence on this acquisition?

Ooops...

[nichomach]

And it gets better - Linky

Industry predictions that Google may have bought itself a whole heap of copyright trouble when it recently acquired YouTube for a modest $1.65bn, appear to be coming true as media companies worldwide move to protect their assets from illicit online dissemination.

According to Reuters, the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers - which represents 23 media companies including TV networks and movie distributors - has successfully lobbied for the removal of 29,549 files from the website.
Click here to find out more!

The Society added it would ask YouTube "to set up screening and other measures to block postings of unauthorised files". It also rather hopefully requested users "not to post video clips in violation of copyright laws".

In the US, meanwhile, a veritable phalanx of media outfits are currently "co-ordinating their negotiations" with YouTube. As we noted earlier this week, YouTube has to date avoided such unwelcome attention, "because with zero revenues it hasn't been worth pursuing".

Google, on the other hand, is absolutely loaded - as its Q3 earnings statement shows - and is therefore worth pursuing.