All The YouTube MeToos Combined May Not Be Worth $1.65B
Date : 03 14 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
As YouTube got super popular and eventually sold to Google for $1.65 billion, a bunch of other startups tried to hop on the bandwagon and become the "next YouTube" in order to cash out as well. In fact, some of them had actually been around since before YouTube, but morphed to make themselves more and more like YouTube, so that there basically are a large number of clones out there that don't offer very much in the way of differentiated functionality. Of course, through all of this, YouTube has continued to thrive and grow, meaning that these MeToo(b)s haven't found enough interest to really get very far. Some have a lot of traffic, but hosting all that video is expensive (as YouTube was all too painfully aware, as it needed to borrow $15 million just to pay the bills before the Google deal closed). So, now with so many MeToo players out there, and no one looking to swoop down and pay $1.65 billion for their traffic and indistinguishable technology, many are expecting something of a shake-out, as there are way too many players in the space, they're losing a ton of money, and none of them have done much to stand out or build something that others want to buy. Plus, with YouTube opening up its APIs it may be even more difficult for these clones to stay afloat.
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