Big Deal, Big Yawn
“Who cares, really. What does it mean for us? Probably not a lot. But the founders of YouTube made a video about the sale and posted it to the site. I think it’s the dumbest video I’ve ever seen … and yes, I’ve seen the Blair Witch Project. “
Stephen Brown, college studentstephenbrown.typepad.com
Twice as Nice
“This is great. Two kings have gotten together and we’re going to be able to provide you an even better service and build even more innovative features.’’
Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder, in a video clip announcing the deal with Google
Curb Your Enthusiasm
“Get your hand off me.”
Steve Chen, YouTube’s other co-founder, after Hurley talks
Someone Who Should Know
“Would Google be crazy to buy YouTube? No doubt about it. Moronic would be an understatement of a lifetime.”
Mark Cuban, co-founder of Broadcast.com, which was sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, blogmaverick.com
Buying Into Community
“Google Video doesn’t let you enter in the same amount of metadata about your videos as YouTube but, more interestingly, it doesn’t seem to let you create your own homepage to showcase your videos. Nor can people subscribe to your content in the way they can on YouTube. So, unless you’re one of those media heavyweights which assumingly pay to get special treatment on the front page, you’re just another face in the crowd at Google Video, with no chance of using it to build your own profile. Doesn’t sound like much of a community to me.’’
Adam Turner, technology journalistseekingnerdvana.com
Sudden Impact
“It’s a collision of a really good idea and a copyright law that was written before anybody thought of any of [Google’s] applications.”
Laurin Mills, copyright expert, Nixon Peabody law firm, to BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk)
Self-Sifting for Gold
“The idea of 'user-generated’ content is a great one. And it works when you have millions and millions of people contributing such content — like at YouTube.com. From a mountain of boring/mediocre trash you find a few gems and the system is designed such that users push these gems up to the top of the pile.”
Rashmi Bansal, Mumbai, Indiayouthcurry.blogspot.com
