Has YouTube Beaten Google?
YouTube, the so-called “Flickr for video”, has become a massively popular service in the last few months. Considering that Google built a service, Google Video, on almost the same principle, has Google blown a chance to create a popular service?
Both Google Video and YouTube operate on the same principle: users send in their video, and the site hosts it for all to see (ignoring the TV search aspect). Yet, YouTube is a viral, popular website because:
- Videos appear automatically
- Users can post their videos on their blogs
- Users can comment and rate videos
- Users can tag and share videos
Now, Google is smart. Google could have built all of those features into Google Video Search. But they didn’t, and now YouTube is going to keep growing until Yahoo, Microsoft or IAC buys it. Considering that a popular website is like gold on the internet, one started by a major search company would have been a huge deal.
Could Google have created YouTube before YouTube did? Could they have won this one? Or is their strict reliance to the same user interface for everything have cost them a lot in this case?
Oh, here are my YouTube videos. I could have uploaded them to Google Video, but in every case, I needed them now and I needed them on my blog. Sorry, Google.
YouTube sucks. And I’ll tell you why: Macromedia Flash.
Comment by OrangeSlice | December 23, 2005
I wouldn’t say they’ve beaten Google, but they are definately winning the battles. They are allowing a lot of copyright infringement and Google is trying to avoid that problem. That’s the basic difference.
Comment by Randy Charles Morin | December 23, 2005
Words/site/site
[back to top] Prev Words Next site site Topic with BLOG Google search result Inspect with the Amazon Try seeing with the picture/image Inspect with the other site site Topic with BLOG [back to top] 2005-12-23 And So This is Christmas…
Trackback by Wiki | December 23, 2005
Hmm? I think they both are concerned with copyrights, but Google doesn’t exactly look clean either.
Comment by Burt Thomas | December 24, 2005
I think it has. Youtube is very very easy to use.
Here are my videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos.php?user=lucubrate
Comment by Scott | December 24, 2005
[…] 昨日 InsideGoogle が Google Video と YouTube の差を分析していたが、なかなかに興味深い。要は Flickr の戦略をそのまま踏襲した YouTube が Viral Marketing を制した、というところ ろうか。Web 2.0 的な勝ち方 と言える。 […]
Pingback by Rauru Blog » Blog Archive » Google Video vs YouTube | December 24, 2005
You’d think after Amazon, Delicious, Flickr, Wikipedia, etc. Google would realize that their users have a lot of information too (information like “this is funny” and “this is lame”). If they really cared about indexing that information, they’d ask us for it.
But that can’t be described in an algorithm. It’s too subjective for the folks at Mountain View I guess.
Comment by Brock | December 24, 2005
I’m using it since July, and I’m loving it ! I’m up to 455 vids, mostly commercials, and the fact I can pull rss feeds from clips/users and create my own playlist only makes it better !
Check out http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos.php?user=Coolz0r and have fun
Comment by Coolz0r | December 24, 2005
YouTube has a much nicer interface, Google has a search box, popular and random video. When you are dealing with a lot of amature material it helps the user to have some predefined categories to choose from. YouTube just seems more complete than Google Video. I can tell a friend to checkout YouTube.com. When I tell them about Google video they assume it to be at googlevideo.com not video.google.com. Google needs to start polishing up their none search products. A little bit of service intergration wouldn’t hurt either. I use Google reader, why do I have to create a new list of feeds for Gmail? They also need to make their services easier to find. I will bet that MicroSoft will come with some tightly intergrated products.
Comment by Errol | December 26, 2005
You know what. I take it back.
Has YouTube beaten Google Video?
Well, has Amazon beaten Google Book Search? Has Flickr beaten Googe Image Search?
Google Does Search. If Google Video indexes every video on YouTube, and Google Reader can subscribe to YouTube’s RSS feeds - who has won?
Comment by Brock | December 26, 2005
[…] Nathan Weinberg at Inside Google is claiming that YouTube has moved ahead of Google Video in terms of popularity. I totally agree. But it’s not just Google - these guys have moved ahead of everybody! In November, TechCrunch had a roundup of the “flickrs of video” - here’s the list: […]
Pingback by Mashable* - Pete Cashmore on Web2.0 » YouTube - The King of Video Sharing? | December 26, 2005
You should definitely check out vSocial (http://www.vsocial.com). Part of what makes it standout relative to a site like YouTube is that beyond making video clip sharing just work, it provides web based tools that enable users to actually “do something” with video.
So, for example, in the vSocial scheme of things, if you embed a clip on your blog, you will see a meta layer that enables you to see how this clip was tagged by vSocial members, see what comments were made about it by them, and email the clip to friends in a click — all without going to another site.
Plus the service provides a tool called a video roll that enables users to tell short stories (e.g., favorite horror movies) using an amalgam of clips. In addition, user badges are flash based widgets that adorn community pages with dynamic profile info like favorite, newest or most popular uploaded videos.
Again, all browser based, and you can even create full posts on clips to Blogger and TypePad using our WYSIWYG Blog It! editor. Plus, you can integrate videos into iTunes in a single click.
To get a quickie primer on this and see-touch-feel what I am talking about, check out the post that I wrote on the topic called “Short attention, short conversations and video clips” (http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2005/10/vsocial_video_c.html).
It has a couple examples embedded in the post.
Better yet, check out the site yourself, and in five minutes, it should be clear that vSocial has nailed it from a usability, utility and workflow perspective.
The site is growing like a weed.
Mark
Comment by Mark Sigal | December 26, 2005
[…] My gut told me YouTube had overtaken Google Video, based on simple observation of the internet and the popularity the service was enjoying. Turns out I was onto something. Hitwise has crunched the traffic data, and YouTube indeed overtook Google Video in market share, shooting up 83% in one week thanks partially to the mega-popularity of the “Lazy Sunday” Saturday Night Live sketch. […]
Pingback by » Guess I Was Onto Something » InsideGoogle » part of the Blog News Channel | December 29, 2005
YouTube is freaking nice. loads of nice videos for pple to watch… i really love YouTube.
i hope it will grow the like the way it has been doing for the past few mths. =)
Comment by Lu | December 30, 2005
[…] Nathan Weinberg at Inside Google is claiming that YouTube has moved ahead of Google Video in terms of popularity. I totally agree. But it’s not just Google - these guys have moved ahead of everybody! In November, TechCrunch had a roundup of the “flickrs of video” - here’s the list: […]
Pingback by YouTube - The King of Video Sharing? - Mashable* | July 30, 2006
Amusing to come across this now as Google brought YouTube. However, google video has netted more money than YouTube and both have netted less than MSN Video (which still remains top dog)
However, i do find YouTube better than Google video but thats because its more social GV lacks community.
Comment by .. | November 4, 2006