GoogleTube

Speculations are all over the Internet about Google possibly making a bid for video-sharing site YouTube (estimated valuation: US$ 1.6 billion), although no one seems to have a real source. Let's assume there is some fire under the smoke: there are many reasons why such a deal would make sense, and many why it wouldn't. Interestingly, while most news stories keep defining YouTube "the no. 1 video-sharing service", just a few days ago AlwaysOn published some data that put the speculations in a different perspective:

According to a new video report by comScore Media Metrix (...) 37.4 million unique individuals watched a video on MySpace in July. All told, they collectively watched 1.4 billion videos. By comparison, the audience on Yahoo watched 812 million video streams, making Yahoo the No. 2 most popular video site as measured by video streams. (...) YouTube ranks No. 3, having generated 649 million video streams in July. (...) And, near the bottom of the top 10 video sites was Google, with 60 million streams.

So if you look at it this way, MySpace is the number 1 online video site. There are other, competing figures of course, that award the primacy to YouTube. August figures by Hitwise for example show this ranking based on share of visits:

YouTube: 45.46%; MySpace Videos: 22.99%; Google Video: 10.25%; Yahoo! Video: 6.06%; MSN Video: 5.92%

But what both sets of figures tell is roughly the same story: Google Video is way, way beyond YouTube in popularity (like many other nonsearch Google services are way beyond their respective competitors). Google didn't see it coming - "it" being the whole online-video-and-music phenomenon. They didn't buy MySpace when they had a chance, just before Rupert Murdoch picked it up (and then went back offering an advertising deal that cost them 4 times as much). Until very recently they didn't even consider video important enough to award Google Video one of the few precious links above their main search box - they dropped Froogle and added Video only in August, and it still shows up as "new" (image left). So if there is truth in the speculations, Google may just be trying not to make the same mistake twice - by doing something they've basically never done before: buy an audience (their usual modus operandi is throwing a few smart engineers at an idea, release it, and see if it sticks). Btw: Microsoft and Yahoo have also been rumored to be eyeing YouTube.

UPDATE - It's a done deal.