Google and YouTube: The American Dream is Alive and Serving Up Video to the Masses

Unless you've been under a rock for the past couple of days, I am sure you have heard about Google's latest acquisition. I mean I even saw it on the Ellen show this morning, so the news has officially reached the masses.

Google bought the online video/social networking site YouTube for 1.65 Billion dollars. (Yes I said BILLION.) While other sites and blogs are talking about how much of a bargain it was or was not or about how Google may get a return on their investment by monetizing the visitors or how Google can save YouTube from potential legal copyright issues, I want to talk about what this purchase means to the Internet entrepreneur.

It is yet another reminder that the American dream is alive and hanging out with two young Internet entrepreneurs who launched a small site a little over a year ago (February 2005 to be exact) called YouTube with a little bit of seed money. That site has now grown quickly into one of the most popular websites on the Internet. It's subscribers and visitors view over 100 million videos every day and the site has an estimated 72 million individual visitors each month.

So why did Google buy a video site when they already had Google Video? I am sure there are many reasons, but here is what Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt had to say,

"The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that
complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it
universally accessible and useful..."

The chief executive said the two companies were "natural partners" to offer a media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers. He also said that YouTube will be one of many investments that Google plans to make in the online video arena.

I think it's kind of funny, because he almost made it sound like this was an altruistic acquisition that would somehow make the world a better place by allowing people to see funny videos. Isn't that America's Funniest Home Videos' mission statement? Regardless, we all know that the purchase was made for one big reason...EYES. Acquiring an online entity with 72 million unique visitors per month is almost like being able to print your own money. I highlighted the word Advertisers, because that is what this is really all about. When you have a site with that many visitors, you can attract any and every big time advertiser and generate millions and millions of advertising revenue.

So what is the lesson learned from all of this? As I have said...The American Dream is Alive and Well. And the purchase of YouTube should motivate the Internet entrepreneur and let them know that the .com boom may not be dead just yet. Google said themselves that they are going to make a few more millionaires or billionaires in the near future.

You should also know that if you do a good job at building up traffic to your site, you can monetize (generate money from) your visitors with Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network, Online Advertising (i.e. Adbrite.com), etc..

And remember...if you get enough traffic, you just may be getting a call from Google or some other large online entity that will pay top dollar just to get control of the EYES. YouTube was not the first and will not be the last, but I do wonder who will be the next...

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Article written by LaQuishe Wright, Search Engine Optimization Expert and President of Wright Consulting Firm. Wright Consulting Firm specializes in increasing traffic to your website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click Management (PPC), Internet Advertising,
Blog Optimization, Internet Marketing Strategy, Optimized Press Releases and
Search Engine Marketing Training. Our Internet Marketing Strategies can be the
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