#10 - The YouTube sale and Popularity
David Johnson - Davidj.org - I believe that the features and functionality attract the user base, and that ultimately it is the user base that is being purchased. Features and functionality don’t sell for 1.65 billion dollars, but 6 million unique hits on a single video affords a great selling price.
I personally don’t see much difference between myspace and xanga. However, the user base of myspace is miles beyond xanga. The flood of users to myspace caused a bigger flood whereby people, bands, and other entities referenced people to their myspace page instead of their web site. I don’t think the technology of myspace was much different than xanga, except maybe for the social networking/user pictures portion.
A large user base means more to buyers than to users. Digg is a great service, but to me it is now a bit overwhelming. With more users came more submissions. It became harder for me to navigate to points of interest. Consider ‘With more information comes less content.’ But the larger user base is good for the creators of Digg.
The names Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Xanga, and MySpace don’t mean as much to me as the functionality that they provided. It is the userbase that makes/made the sale.
Steve Giunto - Bark at the Moon - Yes, $1.65 billion can be described as “a lot of money”. Just for fun comparison, if you set a dollar bill on its edge, then stack another next to it, and another, and another… starting at our studio in the Cuyahoga Falls, we’d get to the outskirts of Myrtle Beach, SC before we ran out of George’s. That’s not end to end, we’re talking the thickness of a single bill here. If you drive there, that’s passing by $44,900 in dollar bills every second. I’d be thrilled with a stack to the front door. Thank you google for the factors for that equation.
There’s no features or functionality worth that kind of money. The “YouTube” name is what was worth every buck, and taking out the main competition to their “google video” didn’t hurt either. Google can change every posted video, and totally revamped YouTube’s UI and nobody would blink. They may have some complaints about change, but that’s pretty much what all these forums are for, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I think YouTube back in the good old days, (a whole 23 months ago) had to put priority on an easy to use UI, and basic functionality. And in the case of web design, a bad UI can frustrate your visitor and lose a sale quicker than anything.
So I think the question has 2 answers. If a company is starting up, features and functionality can attract and keep new clients, but if your established enough, it doesn’t matter what you do, you can sell anything with the right name on it. What can Donald Trump Cologne really smell like?
Eric Smith - Mind Architecture - I think the popularity of YouTube, Digg, My Space, Wordpress, etc. is due more to popularizing a methodology and brand than any technological innovation.
The technologies that implement these services are not especially complex or new. The designers of YouTube et al simply wrapped them in an easy to use interface and branded them.
So, my opinion is that branding and buzz-building is much more important than features and functionality for these sorts of mass-market applications.
Your average web surfer doesn’t frequent social network type sites because of feature x or y or even because of how a site looks, they visit because their friends are there or their friends / the media is talking about it.
If that wasn’t the case, a better designed and better looking competitor would have knocked out My Space by now…