Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube 290
An anonymous reader writes "The average visitor to YouTube is costing Google between one and two dollars, according to new research that shows Google losing up to $1.65 million per day on the video site. More than two years after Google acquired YouTube, income from premium offers and other revenue generators don't offset YouTube's expenses of content acquisition, bandwidth, and storage. YouTube is expected to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009, costing Google up to $2,064,054 a day, or $753 million annualized. Revenue projections for YouTube fall between $90 million and $240 million."
Maybe this is in part because, as Al writes, "Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence."
REALLY now? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:REALLY now? (Score:4, Informative)
On top of that, the few videos that I like that they didn't remove are much harder to find using the new search system. When I youtube, I'm looking for something specific and I don't want to have to wade through hundreds of teenagers' insignificant opinions, cretinous hammy behavior, or unimaginative video collages.
The "you" in Youtube will be the death of it.
the search could stand some improvement (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Youtube is failing because all of the stuff worth watching was coincidentally all the stuff they removed for DMCA-related reasons.
And how exactly did they generate revenue before the DMCA takedowns?
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
And is that based on what google pays for the bandwidth, or what anyone else would have to pay for it? Considering google with their size and scope basically get bandwidth for free because it's in everyone's interest to peer with them.
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
But... there is also new servers, storage, replacing broken parts, web design/maintenance, and paying the people, and paying for the stuff they use who take car of all of that, the power bill, legal battles, etc...
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Youtube isn't failing at all. It has become the number one video site.
Sure, it is loosing money today. But tomorrow, bandwidth and storage will be cheaper, and Youtube will still be number one. They got in early and conquered the market.
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is hard to switch if you are one of the people uploading the videos. At the very least it means you need to re-upload them, along with all the metadata like description and tags, and then re-organise them. Even then, you loose all the comments, links to friends and similar videos, playlists etc.
While the causal viewer may not care much, anyone who uploads or is involved in any way with the community aspects (even if just leaving the odd comment or keeping some favourites lists) is pretty heavily invested.
So user generated content is not any good? (Score:5, Informative)
So stuff that a big huge corporation put together and protects with draconian copywrite a DMCA is only worth it? Individuals can't come up with good ideas and offer them for free?
Here are 2 examples that completely blow that out of the water:
http://www.youtube.com/user/davidspates [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/user/Peacer [youtube.com]
And the second guy recently got a job with some major media group because of the talent he showed on youtube!
Here's another example, but it may not be to everyone's entertainment tastes but you can't dispute the quality of the actual animation is great:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MondoMedia [youtube.com]
And here's some "big media" content actually provided without those draconian restrictions:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BritainsSoTalented [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/user/JanisDigitalMedia [youtube.com]
The first one is the most subscribed channel on youtube. The second is content for a local radio station in philly. I find both of these sub par compared to the previous links, but hey people want to subscribe to them, and the owners must be leveraging some kind of success out of them.
So I directly challenge that the assertion that the only good stuff on youtube is the stuff taken down by DMCA. I think the only stuff you ever bothered to look for was stuff you already saw on TV.
Oh... and did you forget the Monty Python channel? If you don't think that's worth it, then I demand Taco ban your IP immediately for proclaiming such heresy!
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"So stuff that a big huge corporation put together and protects with draconian copywrite a DMCA is only worth it?"
Dear Sir/Madam:
CopyRIGHT.
Your licence to hold an opinion about a legal concept you don't even know how to spell is hereby _revoked_.
After the mandatory 21-day stand-down period you may reapply for said licence at your local City Council service centre, in the usual manner, ie, on the unlighted fifth sub-basement floor in the disused lavatory marked with the sign 'Beware of the Leopard', etc, etc
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Also, one of the reasons I've stopped using YouTube other than the occasional linked-from-some-other-website-or-email visit is the fact that they fucked up the favorites functionality. You used to be able to simply page through your list of favs, adding them to your quick list by simply clicking on the '+' widget on the video snapshot, but now you have to make a selection and then scroll back up and click on a button that then shows a dropdown menu. Then on to the next page. This loss of usability is comple
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit.
Granted, there is a lot of "noise" to filter out on youtube because of the people who use it as a video journal or blog. But I think the home-made stuff is what is appealing. The DMCA-protected copyright owners can pay for their own video hosting for all I care.
I go to youtube to see videos of people's RC car mods or other such DIY crap, not commercial videos.
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Funny)
"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence." Let me be the first to say "I told you so."
The researchers found some very useful information though--like the fact that a man getting kicked in the testicles is just as funny or maybe even more funny in grainy home video than in high definition. After performing principal component analysis on several testicle injury clips rated across thousands of users, they found--surprisingly--that the most important variables are (1) how wide the victim's eyes opened upon impact, (2) how loud of a scream the victim emitted upon impact and (3) how long the victim lay motionless on the ground after initial agony.
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That was my first thought, too.
Just as the majority seem to have an appetite for garbage television, and garbage music, they also have an appetite for garbage Youtube videos.
Yes, I'm being pompous, condescending and arrogant. Got a problem with it?
Re:REALLY now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm being pompous, condescending and arrogant.
I believe the word you were looking for there is "subjective."
Got a problem with it?
Not really. As long as you don't try to push your ideas on me and demand YouTube focus on your personal priorities and tastes in video, everything is fine and I encourage you to express your opinion.
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That was my first thought, too.
Just as the majority seem to have an appetite for garbage television, and garbage music, they also have an appetite for garbage Youtube videos.
Yes, I'm being pompous, condescending and arrogant. Got a problem with it?
Garbage television? You mean this [wikipedia.org]?
Garbage Music? Like this [rollingstone.com]?
If so, then Yes! I do have an appetite for Garbage.
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Garbage In, Garbage Out (Score:5, Interesting)
Content Acquisition - $710,000
Revenue Sharing - $66,000
Administrative Costs - $252,000
I might be able to see the bandwidth costing a million dollars a day but could someone explain how Credit Suisse and comScore came up with these numbers?
Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sure it does.
Total cost/visitor= $1-$2 /day = ~1,027,397 ( 375MM / 365 )
Total visitors
Total cost/day = $US 1,027,397 - 2,054,794
The article says up to $1.65 million per day which, on high traffic days, that users/day number is obviously higher. If you take the revenue projections then you get, on the high end, $US 712,328/day and on the low end $US 246,575/day.
2,054,794 - 246,575 = 1,,808,219.
So you're right, the article is wrong. YouTube could be losing up to ~ $US 1.8MM / day.
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Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out (Score:5, Informative)
Cheap-cheap-cheap(Cogent, HE, etc.) bandwidth at commits larger than 1 Gbps are around $4-6/Mbps single-homed. I don't care who you are: even with a 50 Gig commit you're still looking and $8-10/mbps for a decent multi-homed BGP mix.
With the high-quality vids they are posting, $1-$2/visitor could be very real. I do own an ISP so take my word on these numbers, the figures I used are current as of this month.
Re: (Score:2)
So about $0.10 a gigabyte, which makes $1-$2 per visitor a bit suspect, but not completely out of line.
But I think there's a factor that isn't being considered here; Traffic balancing.
I'll bet Google has (had?) an insane traffic imbalance because they're indexing the entire web.
Outbound traffic could very well be "free" for them - it may even have a negative cost when peering arrangements
Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out (Score:5, Insightful)
If any company was losing $1.8M a day you'd see people laid off daily. Corporations would lay off people daily if they broke even on revenue, because broke even means that the salaries and raises put you in the red. Common business sense.
The fact that google still supports youtube means a: it sees it as a profitable business venture and b: they probably buy bandwidth in bulk where usage doesn't affect the cost much. Especially considering this is commercial their monthly bandwidth costs are probably identical every month; only the electrical and man-hours charges change, and I suspect the variance is extremely low. No corporation wants volatile bills from month to month, and guess what? No corporation has completely volatile bills from month to month, or it would fail miserably. /edit: oh god, it's that internet evolution site. Have they ever done anything actually FACTUAL instead of crap? Why didn't someone tag this internetevolution so we could skip this whole article?
Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out (Score:4, Insightful)
Youtube is a loss-leader and has become akin to "Kleenex" or "coke". Obviously the goog execs see it as a good move to keep something that loses money. Perhaps they have plans to monetize it somehow. Who knows. All the what-ifs aren't going to change they fact that Youtube takes more to operate then it brings in. Google is likely subsidizing that loss from adwords revenues.
Yeah, but (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah, but (Score:4, Informative)
Is it still obligatory if it's a comic that doesn't get linked very often?
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html/ [giantitp.com]
But maybe I shouldn't link to them, their servers are notoriously slow.
Youtube and the death of the advertising model (Score:5, Insightful)
While much has been made of Google's amazing ability to make money with online advertisements, the cracks in the dike are beginning to leak.
Youtube is only the first domino in Google's house of cards. As Google increases server-side requirements to support their growing portfolio of online products, they will reach a point where advertising simply won't be profitable anymore. Youtube with its heavy server-side requirements (even running on lighttpd!) just isn't cost effective considering the number of pages they need to serve and the direct links to media they provide.
As someone who likes services that are free, I will mourn the loss of advertiser-paid services, but in terms of the viability of the web this day was inevitable.
Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model (Score:5, Funny)
Checkmate.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Checkmate.
Maybe he should change his name from BadAnalogyGuy to MixedMetaphorGuy?
Bingo.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
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I'll see your checkmate and raise you a yahtzee.
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Snap!
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I think you're confusing BadAnalogyGuy with MixedMetaphorGuy.
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Youtube is only the first domino in Google's house of cards.
Checkmate.
You sunk my battleship! Pretty sneaky, sis.
Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model (Score:5, Funny)
Google builds card houses out of dominos?
How the heck does that work?
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Microsoft builds its house of dominoes out of playing cards. It's best not to ask how either one of them work.
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Well, it's like the old saying... the needle in the haystack that broke the camel's back. Y'know?
*sigh* *points to the username "BadAnalogyGuy"*
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A bit like the internet tubes.
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I don't know, but I think Zapp Brannigan does.
The older models will die first (Score:2)
It's just taking a while because we're emotionally attached to things like paper news [shirky.com].
But it's a process and the over-valuation of old media models are upheld by vested interests. Our current cable networks add nothing to the mix except for the occasional cornerscreen logo.
Ten years ago there would be no way to identify and fund popular content without cable companies. In ten years time there will be very few, if any, cable companies left - with virtually all production funded from web advertising revenue.
G
Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model (Score:5, Insightful)
I would point out that Microsoft has lasted for decades with huge money draining projects, on a few heavily profitable ones.
Eheh (Score:2)
The end of the advertisement based internet, prediction #102212211. Allow me to file it with all the other IT predictions, I had a heavy lunch so need to go to the filing room anyway.
Re:Youtube and the death of the advertising model (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm more optimistic about the survival of something like Hulu. They have ads you cannot skip, but they usually have FEWER ads than the same show when broadcast.
We are still in the early stages of figuring out how business models will work in the Internet world.
The cost of distributing content has fallen so dramatically that it is practically zero (or gets closer each day), but although the cost to produce content has fallen, it has not fallen by the same orders of magnitude.
As a generalization I'd say most Internet users prefer something free to something with a cost of a fraction of a cent IF the free item is perceived to have at least 25% of the quality of the non-free item.
Quite a conundrum. You can't spend millions of dollars to produce something that will not yield more than you spent. The puzzle is how to get someone to pay (consumer? advertiser? government? alien illuminati?)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hulu's player is also complete crap. I need to be able to watch my show without having it constantly rebuffer.
Sure it's the player and not your connection? Mine rebuffers occasionally, but not terribly frequently.
Advertiser-paid services aren't going away. (Score:5, Insightful)
Time is on Google's side. Look ten years down the road. Hosting costs and bandwidth costs will be greatly reduced, as is the trend. (Think how far web technology has come since 1999.) Advertising models will have matured, and YouTube will have profitable deals with specific content providers.
The most important thing to have is users. People use Google for searches because it is familiar and it is a habit. The same is now true for videos and YouTube. Despite the fact that other video sites exist, most people think of YouTube by default. Google is willing to lose money now in order to encourage this habit, so that when it does become profitable they will be in prime position.
Priceless... (Score:5, Funny)
Revenue Sharing - $66,000
Administrative Costs - $252,000
Being the number 1 video site on the internet.... Priceless
Re: (Score:2)
The reach the site gives in terms of marking and tracking people's interests is not priceless, but it's in the multi-billion dollar range. Half a billion loss for that, for a net gain, is not even worrisome to google.
it is worth it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:it is worth it (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't the simplest answer the Google made a mistake? They originally came up with a novel way to do search and have made a ton of money off of it. It doesn't mean that everything they do is genius.
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Re:it is worth it (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, most observers now think that Yahoo flushed a massive amount of dough down the drain. Even today, no one is making huge dough selling video online, although several companies are still trying.
Years later, Google repeats the error. In fact, Google is repeating several of Yahoo's errors, and I expect will share a similar fate: rapidly decreasing relevancy, but enough strong core businesses to keep chugging along, hoping to stumble into a new cash cow.
If a company has a huge pile of money, they can keep throwing darts at a board until they hit the domino, and the whole house of cards tumbles... Checkmate!
Greedy Capitalists! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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Editing/removing posts is lame. Don't be in such a hurry.
Re:Greedy Capitalists! (Score:5, Informative)
web 2.0 economics is different (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure exactly how. But, it is a completely different business model, and I'm not sure anyone has it figured out yet. I am grateful for the Googles of the world whoe enter these ventures without much thought to the compenssations, but I do wish them luck. I want youtube to stay around.
Cannon 2.0 trajectories are different. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure exactly how. But, it is a completely different set of ballistics, and I'm not sure anyone has it figured out yet. I am grateful for those of the world who are shot from a cannon without much thought to the results, but I do wish them luck. I hope they don't go splat like everyone else who's tried it.
(Also, isn't "web economics are different" a Web 1.0 statement?)
-Graham
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Re: (Score:2)
No, if you read TFA, they are clearly based on guesses as to the total revenues of YouTube (which range over a huge area) and estimates of its total actual operational costs (which, while also based on all kinds of assumptions, are pretty close between the Credit Suisse and Bear Stearns estimates, unlike the revenue numbers.)
So its an guesstimate of the actual operating profit/loss, not loss based on the potential for gains
Money drains (Score:3, Insightful)
Google has a fundamental problem: except for search ads, nothing they do makes money. Google has already dumped a few money-losing services, and they may well dump more of them. Even the few non-ad products that bring in revenue, like the Google Search Appliance and the corporate version of GMail, aren't very successful. Google stock is down 50% from the peak in 2007, and most of that decline came before the recession. Investors are getting annoyed at the money draining products.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google dumps YouTube and starts charging for GMail.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a stupid way of looking at it. They are my central hub. Everything they do is gear toward information gather and making more money. Google maps? They know the spots I drive to with a simple search, I get directions in return. What benefit is that to them? More targeted ads, and selling info if they so choose.
May as well ki
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They also should work on ads, no longer than 10-15 seconds
Cue whinging Slashdotters about how the 'net wasn't designed for ads and how they should and will find a way to get around them in 3... 2... 1...
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Hmmm...
1. Hire lots of workers
2. Put out products
3. When economy dumps, fire workers
4. Hire workers back with deep pay cuts
5. ???
6. Profit!
Re: (Score:2)
That went *badly* for Circuit City.
Quality vs. Quantity. (Score:3, Insightful)
C'mon, are the quality and popularity statistics really that surprising when the average YouTube video is uploaded with a cheap webcam and recorded by someone who makes Paris Hilton look like Einstein?
I believe a famous dog once said "I leave more personality in tightly coiled piles on the lawn."
Huh. (Score:5, Funny)
I see I'm not the only one who gets paid to do this.
YouTube needs a better search engine (Score:2)
YouTube is like the web from 90ies... Everybody's dog was on there..
Try to find a music video? Well, you'll get 4000 videos dealing with viagra, terrorists, preteen girls, some dopey dudes and everything else EXCEPT for the video you were looking for.
I know that goog may not have the rights to the aforementioned music video, but it's fscking misleading and a waste of my time.
I know that there is some good stuff out there and there is a good idea behind it, but navigating through the crap, poorly edited, and
Not "research" (Score:2)
Er, no.
That's not research, its almost pure guesswork. The key part being the guesses as to revenue. The two different estimates (from Credit Suisse and Bear Stearns) come pretty close on total daily cost ($2,064,054 vs. $1,906,520), but they are differ by a huge amount in the estimates of daily revenues ($657,534 vs. $246,575) so th
It's about control. (Score:2)
Anybody really surprised? (Score:2, Informative)
Honestly, looking at Google's repertoire of products, most of them don't make money. Only the advertising seems to.
Which is as long as Google can stay on top as search engine king, they can fund these unprofitable pieces of software, be it Chrome, or Gears, or Docs, or whatever... but if they slip in ad revenue, or they have a couple of shitty quarters, I can see some big trouble for Google.
Say what you will about MS, but they have profit centers throughout the company, and have a hoard of cash to boot. Not
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As it stands, I can get all my contacts easily in/out of Gmail, forward my email to other providers, save Google Docs in multiple open and closed formats that work in non-google software, and many other things that MS would have denied in an effort to kill off competitors.
Re: (Score:2)
What are the Microsoft profit centers?
Other than:
Windows
Office
Exchange
MSSQL Server
Input Peripherals
I would bet they have even more losers.
Let me try (Score:2, Funny)
I would just need that amount for a few days. I'm sure I could turn it all around. Just deposit that amount in my offshore bank account as my salary. If it doesn't work... you won't be out any more than usual. Why not give me a try?
hulu a contributing factor also? (Score:2)
a lot of people went to youtube to find eps of TV shows. Combine the takedowns with hulu, and that's got to be responsible for a lot of their lost revenue.
volume (Score:2)
The average visitor to YouTube is costing Google between one and two dollars
No problem, they'll make it up in volume :-)
Quality? What's that? (Score:2)
"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence
No shit sherlock. What next? Water is wet? Come one, anyone who know even just a tiny of pop culture knows that is not about quality, it has never been. Come one, hasn't this people been to school? From childhood we are taught that "quality" and "knowledge" are to be shunned, and "cools", "looks" and dumb acts should be praised.
That explains it. (Score:5, Funny)
Let me relay a little dialog in which I learned the REAL revenue model of youtube. I got this mysterious call just a few days ago.
Me: Hello ... embarrassing video you posted to youtube a couple of years back? ... guess so?
Them: Mr or Ms Skull?
Me: Yes, may I help you?
Them: You remember that
Me: Um... yes?
Them: You know you gave us-- I mean, google ownership of it.
Me: I
Them: Yes. We have noticed that you have been searching for jobs lately.
Me: who is this?
Them: And we see from your email that you've been speaking with Innitech in particular.
Me: if you don't tell me-
Them: And we also see that you mapped out directions to their headquarters.
Me: I'm going to hang -
Them: If you don't want Innitech to find this video before hiring you, you will wire 1,000,000 USD to the following numbered account
New Internet Jobs (Score:2, Funny)
In the other news... (Score:2)
Take this article with a grain of salt (Score:5, Informative)
There is no other organization in the world that cares more about Google's expenses than Google. If Google was in fact drowning itself in expenses that it couldn't possibly recoup then it would never implemented youtube's support for high definition clips [youtube.com]. I mean, why would they implement a feature that in the end is nothing more than implementing the exact same service while spending about 4 times the bandwidth?
Moreover, it's somewhat amusing how someone can proudly claim that someone is spending millions while at the same time confessing that it is basing his calculations on absolutely zero hard facts or figures. They don't know how much google earns from youtube, they don't even know the order of magnitude Google's bandwidth expense is in. Yet, they try to calculate things.
It starts to get really silly when their calculations, based on nothing more than whims and assumptions taken out of thin air, are presented as $1,406,720 or $1,659,945. That means that they present a result which is the fruit of pure imagination in the form of a number with 7 significant digits. I can't measure anything with that kind of exactness even if I'm holding it in my very hands. Impressive.
To sum things up, nothing to see here.
Anybody miss the MBONE yet? (Score:2)
A central hosting model will NOT work. Only a distributed one will. And it should support LIVE one-to-many scaling. The END USER should pay for this. If my garage band hits it big, I should be able to push a medium bit rate H.264 stream into the grid, and the grid
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Don't forget to pay the royalty for each copy of your H.264 someone downloads, regardless of the method. The end user won't be paying for that.
It's not about the content (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's strategy is not simply about creating or acquiring ubiquitous online services regardless of profitability. A lot of comments so far have missed the forest for the trees. You want to know why Google beats its competitors in advertising? It's not just brand presence or market domination. It's the way in which they cross-analyze data collected from ALL their services in order to increase the accuracy of their advertising.
I mean, hasn't anyone noticed this yet? Your GMail, Blogger, Calendar, Picasa, and YouTube accounts are all linked. Even the original search that Google started out with provides valuable analytics that are still trade secrets. Users of these services leave a data trail that provides Google with all kinds of information about the user's preferences. That information then gets analyzed and targeted ads are served that increase the likelihood that they'll be clicked. And that's how Google gets the business. Their biggest fear is not whether a product is losing money; it is that nobody is using it and therefore there is no data to mine. All these serivces are just carrots they dangle for the end-user. Their true customers are those who pay for the data they collect from us.
One service does not have to turn a direct profit in order to increase the value of the overall business model.
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It's not clear that Google even has a strategy.
Is such income listed in their financials? (Last time I looked,
Ridiculous breakdown, it's not about "losing" cash (Score:2)
Google isn't losing money on YouTube. They're investing.
People forget that Google isn't about advertising, or search, or webmail. They're not about video content or data farms or VoIP.
Google is about one thing: data harvesting. Google is doing a fine job at that. We all know that cable, satellite and broadcast methods of transmitting video and audio are dying. There's no future in doing things through unidirectional multicast. Entering the cable business can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to sta
it's a numbers game (Score:2)
. . . yeah, but they'll make up for it in volume! ;)
Re:Let's all do google a favour... (Score:4, Funny)
I like youtuve. It pains me to think that my pleaseure is costing them.
Re:Let's all do google a favour... (Score:4, Funny)
I like youtuve. It pains me to think that my pleaseure is costing them.
I can tell. Your comment here looks just like a comment on YouTube.
Re:to put in perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
That's around $185 per second. That's quite a bit.
Not really. GM is losing around $540 per second if you break out the $4,200,000,000 quarterly loss they posted. Youtube's only problem is they aren't losing money fast enough to justify stealing money from the citizenry to stay afloat......
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Well, they sure as hell aren't spending it on royalties [blogspot.com].
Re:The Real Reason (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet sweet irony.
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90% of the videos on YouTube explain why YouTube sucks.