{"id":104,"date":"2006-10-17T22:40:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T05:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fishingforcustomers.com\/a-1-65-billion-reason-for-being-number-one\/"},"modified":"2020-02-11T04:19:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T11:19:33","slug":"a-1-65-billion-reason-for-being-number-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/a-1-65-billion-reason-for-being-number-one\/","title":{"rendered":"A $1.65 Billion Reason For Being Number One"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the business news last week the most popular Internet search engine has been paired with the leading video sharing site as Google purchased YouTube. In a conversation with a colleague, he noted that $1.65 billion is a lot of money to pay for any company. He wondered if, with all of Google\u2019s brain power, they couldn\u2019t have come up with their own service instead of buying one.<\/p>\n

Probably they could, but should they have?<\/p>\n

So far, there has been a fair amount of skepticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all, a lot can happen in online video over the next few years. Microsoft is beginning its own video sharing site, <\/em>Soapbox<\/em><\/a>. Meanwhile, MySpace still ranks higher than YouTube–at the time of this writing <\/em>Alexa<\/em><\/a> ranks MySpace as #6 on the web; and YouTube as #10 and MySpace offers video. It’s even possible that the traditional television networks, which are starting to expand online (ABC.com now delivers complete episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost”), will also enter ithis newest medium of user-generated video. Think about it: reality TV and televised talent shows aren’t all that different from the 15-seconds-of-fame world that YouTube has created on the Internet<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Google’s YouTube Blunder
\nBill Wise, Media Post Publications
\nMonday, October 16, 2006<\/p>\n

What\u2019s MySpace known for? Video sharing? No? Then the fact that it \u201coffers video\u201d is irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Truth is, YouTube is popular because<\/strong> it\u2019s a video sharing site. It\u2019s the<\/strong> video sharing site.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s all that television content that we know is going to migrate to the web. Care to bet who\u2019s already positioned in the minds of viewers as the logical place to look for that new content?<\/p>\n

What about the sum Google invested in purchasing a 67 employee Internet start up? I\u2019m not quite sure that this is a valid concern.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a parallel: a friend of mine just purchased a home in Southern California. He\u2019s got a fixed 30 year mortgage at an on roughly half a million dollars at an attractive rate. In other words, he can afford to live in the home he purchased and never will have to face debt-collecting companies like arvato iva<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet, it sounds so much more dramatic to point out that he\u2019s just taken on $500,000 in debt.<\/p>\n

The purchase price is less important than Google’s ability to monetize their investment.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already discussed the biggest advantage of being first<\/a>: people remember you. And since shoppers tend to buy brands in roughly the same proportion they remember those brands, being the first name consumers think of in a given business category creates a huge marketing advantage \u2013 a mental position that\u2019s nearly impossible to transfer to another company.<\/p>\n

The easiest way to create that top-of-mind position is to actually be first. In fact, to be so much the first that the company creates the category.<\/p>\n