Apparently no one could comment on my entries because of security errors. They’ve been fixed, meaning that you can shower me with adulation now. =).

I wrote the following as a response to a question posed to me on facebook. I’ve decided to make my response public because it reads more like a blog entry than anything else:

I’m predicting a fumble largely because I don’t think Google and Youtube can co-exist together in happy matrimony. Sort of like the couple that you never thought could ever date getting hitched after a matter of months, from my vantage there seems to be too many issues that will prevent a synergistic relationship from emerging smoothly from the acquisition.

At it’s core Google is a company run by engineers and highly technical people. Youtube is run by business people (Paypal/eBay Refugees)… the corporate DNA of the two companies is different, just look at the way the two business developed and established themselves in their respective niches. Google owns search (and the monies derived from its monetization) because of its brutally exacting ever evolving algorithm while Youtube owns video due to excellent timing (right place at the right time never hurt anyone) and understanding of who their core customer is. These two philosophies ultimately led to success for each of the firms individually, but I don’t see the business side of the equation fitting neatly under the fold of the engineering hierarchy without some sort of attrition amongst the individuals who lead the charge in hoisting Youtube to the top of the online video market.

On the Google side, think back. Google Video was started nearly a half a year before Youtube. The engineers, developers, and project managers involved with the product now have to come to terms with clear message that management sent through their acquisition, “Your product sucked, and we bringing people in who can do the the job correctly.” From what I’ve heard from colleagues at Google projects really die and resource aren’t really reallocated after the company deprioritized them. So this entire team that put together google’s video product is now going to have to deal with the fact that they’re playing second fiddle to people they once looked at as the enemy.

As evidenced by Time Warner/AOL, HP/Compaq, and to lesser extent eBay/Paypal tech companies seem to have a hard time with blockbuster mergers. If you take a look back at Google acquisitions over the last 9 years, you’ll notice that google has never spent over 100 million let alone 1 billion dollars on any one purchase. Google has already said that Youtube will be run as its own division separate from the rest of the company which suggests that management has acknowledged it’d be suicidal to rip and rebrand youtube has Google Video v. 2.0…

I’m just extending that concern by suggesting the true cost of the Youtube acquisition has the potential of costing significantly more than the 1.65 billion dollars of stock warrants they traded for control of company…

Oh, and I also agree with the bulk of the ‘Youtube as litigious DCRM honey pot’ issues Mark Cuban has raised on his blog, check him out he’s more obsessed than I am: blogmaverick.com

Well that didn’t take long did it. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“Over the weekend, News Corp. executives expressed their displeasure with the deal to Google and threatened to remove any links to YouTube videos placed by users on their MySpace blog pages, according to a person close to the situation.

Google’s Mr. Schmidt and Advertising Sales Vice President Tim Armstrong are scheduled to meet this week in Los Angeles with News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, President Peter Chernin and Ross Levinsohn, head of its Fox Interactive Media online unit, to discuss the matter.”

I’d like to link to the full article but you need a subscription to read it all. Does this really come as a surprize to anyone. It shouldn’t and that’s not just because I alluded to it in my last post. Myspace has tried to block Youtube twice in the past (only to revert the decision due to user outrage), Google purchasing Youtube just gives myspace all that much reason to shut off the spigot for good. In fact if I can borrow the words of News Corp COO, “If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket…almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace, there’s no reason why we can’t build a parallel business.””

The 900 million reasons Google gave to News Corp to be friends August no longer appear to be enough. The world has changed, this should be good.

*Grabs lawnchair*

Pwned, I know.

I’ve been thinking about this deal for too long. Let’s see how News Corp reacts now that the number 1 and 3 video sites are now under one roof. At least Viacom didn’t pick it up, I’m sure that would have crush Murodch’s dreams of turning Myspace into the 21st century version of MTV.

I’m still predicting a Google fumble. This deal was good for Sequoia, good for Youtube’s founders, and good for who ever else owns equity in Youtube, but that’s about it. Even though it didn’t cost google anything (1.65 billion dollars in stock is just about 1 percent of the company’s market cap, it gains and loses that trading on NASDAQ every day) it should be very interesting to see how well Google integrates Youtube into it’s fold. AOL/TW version 2.0 anyone? (yeah, the scale of the merger is way off, but just think cultural clash).

-Nii A. Ahene

The bulk of mainstream broadcast news has been pretty inconsequential and/or frivolous for a while (I want to say since OJ, but that might just be because I don’t remember much before then). With that said 2006 might  be remembered as the year that internet news that isn’t real news became news. From Facebook broadcasting trivial profile changes to unsubstantiated rumors by Michael Arrington making lead headlines on CNBC, it seems somewhere between the war in Iraq and congressional scandals we’ve forgotten what actual reporting is.
 

Hey, it isn’t like I’m complaining, I, for one welcome our new sheep like media institutions. Less Signal, More Noise, and more ‘cheese’ for those who sort through the cacophony.
-Nii A. Ahene

How do you spell psych? Is that right? In any event, I enjoy visiting Peter Cashmore’s excellent web 2.0 blog His latest entry, however, is a departure from the quality of perceptiveness most of his readers have become accustomed to.

On closer inspection of the press release it looks like comScore tracks unique visitors and not actual users. Given the huge amount of unique traffic to Myspace.com (According to the chart below just under a third of all US internet users visited Myspace.com during the month) it would make sense that Myspace demographic numbers trend towards overall demographic numbers for the internet.

That said, it’s interesting to note that unique visitors to Myspace by 18-24 year olds are overrepresented by 60 percent while visitors in the 35-54 are underrepresented 5.4 percent.

Numbers lie, in fact i’ve come across a couple of the people who make them do that (Ahem, ahem, no names… this time)

-Nii A. Ahene

When you see a good idea and you’re a major company you have two options:

A.) Develop
B.) Aquire

When you see a good idea and you’re a bootstrapping start up you have two options:

A.) Rip
B.) E-mail and ask to help out however what you can…

Interesting.

A little over a year ago Kanye West infamously declared that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Well, in the spirit of Kanye, Mark Zuckerberg (and Co.) doesn’t (don’t) care about Facebook users. As if last week’s feeds fiasco was not enough, AdAge is reporting that Facebook is adopting an open admission policy for new users meaning that anyone from your twelve year old niece to your forty-five year old neighborhood weirdo will able to log in and check out what’s going on Facebook.

Despite assurances that the regional networks that general users will able to join will be kept separate from School Networks (didn’t they say that about high school students as well… yeah they did) it doesn’t take a Berkeley grad to deduce that Zuckerberg and Co are sacrificing user experience for growth without seeking the input of the community they currently service. If Facebook thinks it’s the next Myspace lets just hope they realize the signal/noise trade off their about to make— Not all Network effects are created equal and infinite—In the case of social networking the quality and usefulness of a network decreases as commonality between its members decreases.

Again, we’ll see what pans out
-Nii A. Ahene

Facebook has hard launched some new functionality into its website that has radically altered the user experience. From Mashable.com:

First off, they’ve added News Feed, a box on your homepage that displays what your friends are doing on Facebook. The feature provides a constantly updated stream of news stories tailored to your interests, plus the latest changes and additions from your friends and groups

The second feature is Mini-Feed, a new section on your profile page that displays your latest updates all in one place, so that visitors can get a quick overview of all your activities.

It should be interesting to see the reaction from the community over the next couple of days since there was no soft launch or user warning about the change before they went live. I’ve we’ve already seen some people blog about the changes. (We also learned a new word courtesy of Diep, stalky). Whether a insurrection and backlash materializes remains to be seen.

That said, I’m more interesting in seeing what happens with facebook on-site advertising revenue. With everything aggravated on a single page two things are likely to occur. The first, a reduction in impressions/page views. If everything that changes is dynamically piped onto convenient placed inside landing pages what use is it to search and view through your friend profile pages?

Second, with a very busy inside landing page becoming the foci of the facebook universe who is going to have time to look and click on banners and facebook flyers when there is so much compelling content strategically placed in the center of the users field of vision. Will advertisers continue you to pay the same dollars for ads that perform and convert at a rate lower than the historic average? Doubtful.

While providing users with a rich, engaging feature the departure from “Facebook’s old Encyclopedic interface” for this AJAX feed driven one is likely to cannibalize traditional advertising revenue and unless the smart folks at facebook have realized that the way to go is strong CPA/affiliate marketing instead of CPM/Banner advertising this looks like another case of Web 2.0 putting the user experience ahead of sound business… I’m not complaining though, it isn’t my dime AND it makes it easy for all my fans to stalk me.

We’ll see what pans out.
-Nii A. Ahene

Usually when I wake up early I avoid aim so I can concentrate on what ever I deemed neccesary to sacrafice sleep over, but today I decided to log on half knowing someone was going to make a smart ass remark about being up early. It took less than a 90 seconds for my prediction to materialize:

Kd: go to sleep 

Me: I could say the same thing about you 

kd: i never slept 

kd: did u? 

Me: Yes, actually I did 

Me: I’m up early to work 

Me: why are you still up 

Me: other than not having work tomorrow 

kd: but while u were sleeping…. i 1) went to Caltech and had a 1.5 meeting with a future shaker in the sciences) got admitted as an MIT ASP Fellow 3) Won $150 at cash game w $20 buy in (and a $30 rebuy) 4) Ran 2 miles 

Me: Oh so you’re on meth now eh? 

kd: just 2 redbulls + 1 ice coffee

Me: Meth- excellent way to stretch out those days