Say That Again

Say That Again

by Carlo Longino




YouTube Denies $1 Billion Valuation, But Okay with $600 Million

from the overshooting dept

Earlier this week, a number of stories with the phrase "$1 billion" in close proximity to "YouTube" were winding their way through the media, after the company was apparently the belle of the ball at Herb Allen's annual Sun Valley rich-guy schmoozefest. It seems pretty clear the unprofitable company (with no appearance of a business plan) isn't worth anything near that, but all the better to fit the Skype Billion-Dollar Buyout Plan, which is based more on hype than business sense or financial performance. But YouTube's founder is clearing the air in an interview with Marketwatch, where he "brushed aside reports that the value of the company jumped to $1 billion from $600 million because of his appearance at the Allen & Co. confab". It's not clear, but the writeup makes it sound like he's okay with a $600 million valuation, but $1 billion, well, that's just ludicrous. Wow, such modesty -- a new face to the media-driven buyout plan, maybe one a willing buyer will reward with another $400 million.

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jul 28th, 2006 @ 11:44am
  • by Yet another Anonymous Coward

    Now the best value tube of the Internet!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 1:22pm
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Please change this to the "One born every minute" department . . .

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 1:31pm
  • Based on??

    I'm not sure I get it, what is their valuation based on?

    Their millions of users?? Well I have thousands of users on my site. Can I claim its value as being in the millions? Probably not. So what I want to know is: why the elevated valuations?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 1:37pm
  • The internet is a series of tubes

    by tehdirtaddict

    if 1 is worth $600 million, how much are worth therest :D

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 2:53pm
  • by You people are all wrong here...

    They are worth 2 Billion. The future potential of youtube is the sky.

    Get a life and learn to recognize a bargain when you see one!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 3:24pm
  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 5:13pm
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Sex Kills!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 28th, 2006 @ 7:04pm
  • Wow

    by Sean

    I'd love to be that guy. Though I can see how they valuated how it's worth 600 million. With how many users there are you could basically put some ads up there and make them pay millions of dollars just to put them on.

    That's my two cents.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Jul 29th, 2006 @ 7:21am
    • Re: Wow

      by thecyrusvirus

      Two cents is about what i'd pay for an ad on YouTube. Lots and lots of their video content is streamed and played through other sites and links in blogs so a large proportion of youtube bandwidth isnt even from site visitors.

      They have no real target demographic or niche market so ads there will have a minute click-through rate and be to all intents and purposes pointless.

      Anyone willing to pay large sums for ads on YouTube would have to be head shot

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Jul 29th, 2006 @ 5:19pm
  • by Lord Gauron

    They could have ads in their video streams. Before the "real content".

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 30th, 2006 @ 3:32pm
  • The longer they fly solo

    by Fire Isiah NOW and save us

    ...the more money they will burn. The larger their viewer base, the more money they will burn. There is no economy of scale here. If the big media houses don't buy youtube out (but set up their own video sites)...then youtube is SOL. How many more years can the VCs fund them? 1 million dollar burnrate a month is what I heard. Let this sucka fly solo for another year...then we'll see it crash.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jul 31st, 2006 @ 2:08pm
  • Youtube is worth $500 billion !!!!

    by eric martin

    Easily !

    Everyone loves crappy low res macromedia flash movies !

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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