14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is by far the most popular website on the Internet but, since the Google acquisition, it is not such an important source of profit as the company expected in October 2006. At that time, Google paid $1.6 billion for YouTube, planning to pay off the money by attracting both users and publishers to the service. Well, even if the Google plans were remarkable, the search giant was assaulted by an impressive number of complaints that were sent especially because Google infringed the copyright of numerous publishers. Let me present a short history of YouTube since the Google acquisition:
The video service encountered several lawsuits filed by several persons or companies but the most popular is surely the one that concerns Daniela Cicarelli, Ronaldo's ex-wife who sued YouTube for publishing videos without authorization. At that time, a Brazilian court closed YouTube Brazil until the company removed all the videos with the model from the page.
Another important step in Google's YouTube history was the Viacom removal. The owner of Comedy Central and MTV demanded the video service to remove almost 100.000 clips from the page because it doesn't pay for the content. Since the removal was started, Google made an impressive partnership campaign, attracting NBA, Chelsea FC and BBC for powerful agreements.
It seems like YouTube is not quite a successful acquisition for Google but the company sustains it takes longer for the video service to become a powerful product. The search giant's representatives said in an interview that YouTube's traffic is remarking so they are all hoping that Google will manage to pay off the investments.
"He added that the acquisition "was going very well" but cautioned investors not to expect any meaningful financial impact from YouTube for the foreseeable future. "Looking at the traffic, user-generated video has tremendous interest," he said at a Bear Stearns media conference that was monitored by Web cast. "There is a large advertising opportunity to be built on that traffic," he said. "But an old joke in the Internet is that URL stands for Ubiquity first, Revenue Later," CNN Money reported.