Google vs. MySpace: Is YouTube doomed?

Is the Google-YouTube Kool Aid spiked?

Apparently not: “Did Murdoch just KO Google?” Robert Young asks.

Google is not God and the Google-News Corp. fight is just in the opening rounds.

Young on “Google’s incredible success to date, and what they did so right“:

The obvious answer will likely involve an explanation of the brilliant technologies that make up PageRank and AdWords.

Not so obviously brilliant, however. I debunk the PageRank mystique in “Google search PageRank excludes relevant Websites” and in “Scoring Google on quality: C” I dissect the costly Google search advertising Pandora’s box that continuously increases in complexity, opaqueness and Google centricity.

Despite Young’s confidence in Google‘s “brilliance,” he reports looking “under the hood” to unearth a Google vulnerability that he deems elder statesman Rupert Murdoch is in the process of exploiting, big time, thanks to the News Corp.-NBC Universal video distribution JV:

What happens in a future where video, not text, is the fundamental element of the web? If Google cannot translate and convert the advantages it had in a text-dominated web into a future web of videos, Google is in trouble.

Young says he “looks under the hood” to find a “not-so-obvious reason” critical to Google’s success: “The fact that the web has been predominately comprised of text.”

Is Google’s for (massive) profit manipulation of the Web's text really “not so obvious”? No looking under the hood necessary to see the “Ads by Goooooogle” AdSense column along several paragraphs of the text of Young’s post at NewTeeVee!

Young’s case for Murdoch trumping Google CEO Eric Schmidt is based on several faulty assumptions.

YOUNG: "In a web comprised of text, Google could dominate the market in terms of aggregation, search, and distribution without the need to strike one single agreement with content owners. All Google had to do was crawl and index."

Google may believe it has no need to “strike one single agreement with content owners“ because it can easily “crawl and index,” but the Association of American Publishers and the Copiepresse European press group say otherwise and they are telling Google so via legal actions in courts throughout the world.

YOUNG: "But, in a web comprised of video, Google must deal with content owners and strike licensing and distribution agreements, as neither its technologies nor current copyrights laws enable it to autonomously automate the aggregation of a video library without the explicit consent of content owners."

Doesn’t YouTube continue to “autonomously automate the aggregation of a video library (via unfettered YouTuber uploads) without the explicit consent of content owners,’ even following its $1 billion copyright infringement Viacom induced cold shower?

Young concludes: Murdoch “will be the only one that ends up owning both content (via the new joint venture) and distribution (via MySpace) in any material and meaningful way."

Oddly, the other JV partner of News Corp., NBC Universal, does not seem to matter to Young in the Google-YouTube vs. News Corp.-NBC Universal equation.

Is Google really doomed?

After all, Google believes it is in the DMCA high ground at YouTube, regardless of Viacom’s $1 billion legal statement to the contrary.

If Viacom loses its lawsuit against Google, YouTube will be strengthened. Additionally, in a MySpace vs. YouTube smack down for video sharing destination leadership, YouTube would undoubtedly emerge victorious.

Moreover, Google’s video strategy is not wholly dependent on YouTube. Schmidt believes he has an unbeatable one-two video punch: Google Video and YouTube.

Google, in fact, is setting the Internet online video stage to dominate that market as well, in terms of aggregation, search, and distribution, for a Web comprised of VIDEO, in addition to text.

In Google’s own Googley words:

Google AdWords supports click-to-play video ads, ads that combine the power of sound and motion with the precision of Google to provide users with a relevant and engaging advertising experience. Video ads join our lineup of text, image, and flash ad formats and will be displayed on sites that are part of the Google network.

Young, nevertheless:

Using Google as the red herring, Murdoch may actually have succeeded in rallying all of his competitors to join forces by contributing their combined digital video assets into one pool (which he has significant control over). But through his ownership of MySpace, Murdoch is in a very unique position relative to all his big media brethren.

Owning the whole value chain has always been a strategy that has served him well, and by the looks of it, he’s going to continue enjoying such advantages. Not only that, Murdoch could very well have out-maneuvered Google by positioning MySpace to ultimately become what YouTube was supposed to be.

But, if anyone has done the “out-maneuvering,“ it may very well be Google over MySpace.

Murdoch can not be deemed to own the whole value chain. MySpace, after all, is dependent upon Google for serving up search advertising to MySpace‘s friends, $900 million worth!

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