G-Tube Gate: The nasty inside scoop of the Google / YouTube transaction.

Via Mark Cuban's blog:

A facinating read on Google's purchase of YouTube. Evidently the Google mantra of  'do no evil' has some flexibility built in.

 > The media companies had their typical challenges. Specifically, how to
> get money from Youtube without being required to give any to the
> talent (musicians and actors)? If monies were received as part of a
> license to Youtube then they would contractually obligated to share a
> substantial portion of the proceeds with others. For example most
> record label contracts call for artists to get 50% of all license
> deals. It was decided the media companies would receive an equity
> position as an investor in Youtube which Google would buy from them.
> This shelters all the up front monies from any royalty demands by
> allowing them to classify it as gains from an investment position. A
> few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a
> token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.

I guess Google's got bigger fish to fry.

> The second request was to pile some lawsuits on competitors to slow
> them down and lock in Youtube's position. As Google looked at it they
> bought a 6 month exclusive on widespread video copyright infringement.
> Universal obliged and sued two capable Youtube clones Bolt and
> Grouper. This has several effects. First, it puts enormous pressure on
> all the other video sites to clamp down on the laissez-faire content
> posting that is prevalent. If Google is agreeing to remove
> unauthorized content they want the rest of the industry doing the same
> thing. Secondly it shuts off the flow of venture capital investments
> into video firms. Without capital these firms can't build the data
> centers and pay for the bandwidth required for these upside down
> businesses.

MySpace & FacePage Trouble: Those ungrateful teens.

It seems that MySpace isn't cool anymore, but my daughter could have told you that.

MySpace is going to go the way of Cabbage Patch Dolls and Pet Rocks. The spam, negative press, worried parents looking over teen shoulders. The unbelievable rise of MySpace feeds right into the fad phenomenon. What they should have done is slow the growth and 'trend' their way upwards. Fads by nature are not sustainable.

Of course, they sold and cashed out to the tune of $580 million and left  News Corp. holding the bag.

Startups, venture, hiring, tech, geeks, & other smarts.

Paul Graham writes insightful essays on... 

• How to Start a Startup.
  Build something users love, and spend less than you make.
• Hiring is Obsolete.
  The market is a lot more discerning than any employer.
• How to Make Wealth.
  To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage.
• Ideas for Startups.
  The initial idea is not a blueprint, but a question.
• Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas.
  A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just how to make, is extraordinarily powerful.
• The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
  Some things about startups are kind of counterintuitive.
• How to Fund a Startup.
  Venture funding works like gears.
• How to Present to Investors.
  Explain what you're doing and why users will want it.
• The Venture Capital Squeeze.
  Why not let the founders have that first million, or at least half million?
• The Other Road Ahead.
  You may not believe it, but I promise you, Microsoft is scared of you.
• What Business Can Learn from Open Source.
  There may be more pain in your own company, but it won't hurt as much.
• What the Bubble Got Right.
  Even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change.
• A Unified Theory of VC Suckage.
  If you're not one of the very top funds, you're condemned to be the bad guys.
  

Tag Jungle presents at Launch: Silicon Valley Venture Showcase

Tag Jungle has scored a big win in the visibility wars before it's even launched. The Tag Team has been pushing hard to go live with the site while Phil has been scrounging around trying to keep everyone fed.

The Tag Team announced tonight that Tag Jungle has been invited as one of only 30 tech startups to present at  Launch: Silicon Valley Venture Showcase. This is a big win for the wonderbread boys.

Tag Jungle will be showcasing their solution to make sense of the blogosphere. With a bazillion blogs up and running and Google and Technorati hitched to a linear search strategy of back links and keywords, there's room for a better solution. Tag Jungle thinks they're it.

I've seen it. They might be.

Tag Jungle uses some novel approaches to make sense of the millions of blog posts and sorts them using recognition patterns developed at BYU. (Help me out here if I get off base here Phil.) This new context recognition ability allows Tag Jungle to determine what the salient points of the post are and what the post is about without the keyword cha-cha. It also determines what other relevant tags might be of interest to the user and displays them as a tag cloud along the right.  I've seen this in action and it is mucho impressive. The user can use filters to target the information they're interested in including a cool 'sentiment' filter. (I'll let Phil describe that.) The relevance of the search results promises to be an order of magnitude over what's available.

If you're blogging and don't have any hardwill towards the Tag Jungle Tarzan Team (ie. If they don't owe you money.) throw them a bone and link to their site. You'll also want to jump on as a new user and try out the cool little gizmos they've built in.

Tag Jungle: It finds blogy things.

Phil Burns and the Tag Jungle crew gave me pizza today for lunch. That always makes me feel kindly.

Phil was trotting out Tag Jungle again before he tries to find money for more than pizza. That's always a good idea and especially for Phil. I'm generally geek-i-fied enough to follow discussions about blogging in general by I actually had to listen to follow some of the whatchamacallit goes in the gobblygook and comes out here stuff.

Jungle looks to be a real world solution for relevant search in the blogosphere and I'm anxious to see it in real world action.  I farted around with the alpha site for a little while and it looks promising. I was going to write a list of what TJ can do but I'll leave that to Phil. I will say that 'jungle juice' was first spoken by me. (I'll want some nachos at Fight Club.)

Phil et al are going on a roadshow to get more pizza money. Guy Kawasaki recommends watching this pitch by Majora. (Watch it online here.) Who am I to argue. 

I spoke briefly with Phil about building a pre-pitch dinner where Phil can pitch and receive feedback from investor types. I have a few people in mind. If I call you you'll get to see Phil gesture wildly and probably come away with a free T-shirt.

Tag Jungle rolling out a beta test.

I really met Phil Burns ten days ago at a Corporate Alliance networking event. (We'd shaken hands and been introduced numerous times at geek dinners and blogger conferences but I'd never really sat down and been able to talk to him.)

Phil, for those of you who don't know, has been busy in his basement with his band of merry men for the last three months after they all took the axe at Provo Labs.

(Paul Allen was at the same event but unfortunately I didn't cross paths with him. Paul's someone I've never met either although I've been in the same room often enough. {Actually, I did cross paths with Paul on the last night but he was headed back to his hotel room with his wife. It was midnight and I thought better of jumping in his path to introduce myself.})

I digress. Phil and I discussed Tag Jungle at some length. Phil gave me a demo and booted up the beta site. I'm impressed. Farting around with TechCrunch as much as I do and seeing all of the web 2.0 apps, I think Tag Jungle has a workable solution that should get use. Technorati beware?

And 42co.? Evidently it's the answer to the entire universe according to Phil and Hitchhikers Guide. Who am I to question it. At least they changed the name.  Provo Labs Solutions = 8 white bread Mormon geeks in a basement.

Click fraud is increasing for everyone except Google and Yahoo.

 NY Times article >

Instead of actual prospects, the clicks were coming from fraudulent sources. The fraud, which cost DiamondHarmony $17,000 over seven months, was uncovered through analytical software the company installed from ClickTracks of Santa Cruz, Calif.

Click fraud most commonly happens when renegade partners, who get a portion of the fees earned by a search engine each time a paid link is clicked, deliberately generate excessive clicks with no chance that any of the clicks will result in a sale for the business that is paying for them.

The spurious clicks can be generated through automated programs or by paying people to spend time clicking over and over on a link.

Is Google killing the internet?

Google's been a golden child for a while. But the Motley Fool folks have some compelling arguments that detail How Google is killing the internet.