Mark Cuban says: only a "moron" would buy YouTube.

[sladesurfer]

:stick: http://news.com.com/Mark+Cuban+Only+a+moron+would+buy+YouTube/2100-1026_3-6121034.html?tag=nefd.top

YouTube is famous for letting users upload their short clips for the internet to see. YouTube is also infamous for hosting copyrighted material, such as music videos, cartoons, and full legnth television shows. YouTube has responded to the copyright problems by working on contracts with big producers to make the content legal. They currently make all their money off of banner ads, promotions and sponsorships. There has recently been alot of talk of the possibility of buying YouTube. Mark Cuban, a billionare, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, doesn't quite see YouTube as a cash cow. Cuban claims that YouTube will be "sued into oblivion" due to copyright issues, and "anyone who buys that (YouTube) is a moron" because of potential lawsuits from copyright violations. Cuban also doesn't like the advertising potential of the website. "User-generated content is not going away," he said. "But do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?" Cuban also pointed out that when "Somebody puts up something really good and you get, what, 60,000 viewers?".

[[XC] leviathan18]

60k ? if the video is good easly reachs 200k in the first days

[nn_step]

I'd buy that for a dollar :p:

[erwinz]

hehehe :2cents:

[Shift]

Cuban is an idiot. Everyone saw what the he acted like during the NBA finals. He also had a show where he gave away one million dollars. Show got barely past a season and it isn't even shown anymore.
What a success that was:cord:

Youtube has alot of potential. Alot of videos got big and TONS of people log on to that site everday. It made that pilot that was rejected by Warnerbrothers huge, alot of people watched the mentos experiment, etc. It already is a phenomenon and it can only get bigger.

[dicecca112]

Cuban is an idiot. Everyone saw what the he acted like during the NBA finals. He also had a show where he gave away one million dollars. Show got barely past a season and it isn't even shown anymore.
What a success that was:cord:

Youtube has alot of potential. Alot of videos got big and TONS of people log on to that site everday. It made that pilot that was rejected by Warnerbrothers huge, alot of people watched the mentos experiment, etc. It already is a phenomenon and it can only get bigger.

He may be an idiot, but he had to have some brain's he is a billionaire, can you say that?

[awdrifter]

YouTube just need to do one thing, move their entire operation to Sweden, Netherland or Russia, then they would have a lot less lawsuits. But I do agree tho, YouTube has potential.

[syne_24]

hell yea i think youtube has potential. After I saw that myspace is now worth 15 billions; hell anything is possible.

[xlink]

the diferene is that youtube makes 50 cents off the advertisements ona page and spends like 80 cents to display such said video...

myspace jsut has a few small pictures here and there... but damn 15billion... that won't last, tech-bubble.

[INJViper]

Cuban is an idiot.

Amen to that..

[Shift]

but he had to have some brain's he is a billionaire, can you say that?


But isn't that obvious?

[gundamit]

He may be an idiot, but he had to have some brain's he is a billionaire, can you say that? Cuban may have a lot of horsepower under the hood, but I don't believe he's seeing Youtube from the proper perspective. Maybe he can see the value but not the solutions to what should be short term challenges. They've already overcome a huge hurdle in that their name has almost become a synonym for that kind of video content. They have a lot of clicks and eyeballs right now, and they keep coming back. Who would have predicted that a site that not too long ago just seemed to be 90% terrible kareoke would become something so big?

[Anemone]

In a year Youtube will be copied by 20 other sites. Their value, if you actually believe the business models projected (and I don't), is shortlived to put it mildly.

The barriers to entry are minimal. Uniqueness is temporary.

[Cobalt]

There are already many copies of youtube, that doesn't stop it being popular.

[h@RRy]

FTR:

Cuban is faaarrr from being an idiot, and seeing as no one here is a self made billionaire....otherwise, I can see what he's saying; there's no real long-term value that can be garnered from buying youtube.

[Revv23]

In a year Youtube will be copied by 20 other sites. Their value, if you actually believe the business models projected (and I don't), is shortlived to put it mildly.

The barriers to entry are minimal. Uniqueness is temporary.


Hmm there are many good auction sites out there, many are superior to ebay, but i cant name one.

Go figure.

[zabomb4163]

hell yea i think youtube has potential. After I saw that myspace is now worth 15 billions; hell anything is possible.

eh no. newscorp paid 500 million for it. a conservative valuation for myspace at this point is 2. Facebook is in negotiations with yahoo right now for 1 billion and its fairly similar to myspace.

[FLMJIGGY]

Youtube loses WAY too much $. Problem is that they don't make anywhere near what they lose.

I think a major problem is that there are many copies of the SAME video and that costs them a lot of $.

[NoX]

AFAIK Ebay bought YouTube some months ago.

EDIT, nevermind, it was Skype

[syne_24]

eh no. newscorp paid 500 million for it. a conservative valuation for myspace at this point is 2. Facebook is in negotiations with yahoo right now for 1 billion and its fairly similar to myspace.


You're right, I was reading it could reach that amount in three years. Man 500 mils for 'Tom'; now everybody wants to be his best friend.

[aMp]

Cuban's a nut, but at this point I'll side with him. The first deep-pocketed company to step up to the plate and take over Youtube is going to be sued out of existence.

More than half of the material on there infringes copyright. So long as it's an "amateur" site that doesn't make a profit, and you can't sue them for much because they don't have much, the big copyright holders will probably leave them alone. That ends as soon as Yahoo or MSNBC or Newscorp buys them.

Of course, a more reputable company might try to weed out the infringing stuff, which is all that's required by the Supreme Court's decision in MGM v. Grokster, but that would make Youtube another lame, boring content site with a dwindling audience and little value.

I just can't see any legitimate, legal way for the site to make a profit. And imagine the consequences if the fears of the network neutrality folks are realized and SBC starts billing Youtube for SBC users to see the site's content!

[G H Z]

Traffic = Dollars, Cuban just doesn't like it so in this case he's a dumb ass.