Google Buys YouTube – - World Explodes!

So unless you’ve been living under a rock (and a rock without internet access at that) you’ve undoubtedly heard that the wunderkinds at Google have decided to buy up internet sensation YouTube for 1.57 Billion in stock.

And you gotta wonder, why are those geniuses in California shelling out so much scratch for a site that hasn’t–and legally almost can’t–make money?

Well, one of my new Haddadisms is “Money can’t buy you success, only opportunity.”

And what Google is buying here is the opportunity to lead the charge as the internet becomes more and more of a video medium.

A while back I harped on about how happy I was that the 30 second commercial spot is dying a quick death. And I’m still happy about that. In fact I’m dancing right now in my chair (as I watch a downloaded copy of Battlestar Galactica commercial free).

But video is powerful.

And video that’s controlled by the user–video that a consumer can turn on and off as she wants and skip through for the content she really wants, whenever and wherever she wants is going to be one of the most powerful sales tools to come along in decades.

Google knows this. Google undoubtedly has a plan that’s going to be as powerful and revolutionary to the way direct marketers (and if you’re doing business in 2006, you should be a direct marketer) work as good old Adsense.

And personally I can’t wait to see what it is.

Later skaters.

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