An anonymous reader writes "YouTube, the self-described "Flickr of video" has now received $3.5M in funding from Sequoia Capital, the same VC firm that funded Yahoo!, Google, and PayPal. Competitors of YouTube include Revver, launched just last month and founded by Ian Clarke of The Freenet Project fame. As of now, both services are free. With the online video space heating up in recent months, the question is who will discover the best business model." YouTube was first mentioned on Slashdot shortly after its launch three months ago.Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='biz,media,internet';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; YouTube Receives $3.5M Funding from Sequoia Log in/Create an Account | Top | 79 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 79 comments 0: 78 comments 1: 62 comments 2: 36 comments 3: 13 comments 4: 5 comments 5: 2 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Google Video (Score:1, Interesting) by dirtsurfer (595452) on Tuesday November 08, @01:28AM (#13976934) (Last Journal: Tuesday January 21, @04:54AM) So, what's the difference between this and Google Video?Or should I RTFA? ;) [ Reply to ThisRe:Google Video by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:44AMRe:Google Video by RockoW (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @07:31AM So who are Sequoia? (Score:3, Interesting) by Audent (35893) <paul@@@ilovebiscuits...com> on Tuesday November 08, @01:31AM (#13976944) (http://www.computerworld.co.nz/) And who else have they funded...? Surely there are a couple of other companies, or are they simply very good at picking future winners on the largest scale possible? [ Reply to ThisRe:So who are Sequoia? by Kildjean (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:34AMRe:So who are Sequoia? by FireballX301 (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:52AMRe:So who are Sequoia? by mridley (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @02:07AMYahoo, Google, Apple, VA, etc by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @02:08AM Re:Yahoo, Google, Apple, VA, etc (Score:5, Informative) by Agrippa (111029) on Tuesday November 08, @02:19AM (#13977068) They also funded MP3.com with 12 million in early 99 and cashed out hansomely way, way, way before the bubble burst. .agrippa. [ Reply to This | Parent2 replies beneath your current threshold. Vobbo is Better! (Score:5, Informative) by CuteVlogger (925400) on Tuesday November 08, @01:37AM (#13976955) (http://www.vobbo.com/user/ismillejustbecuz) Vobbo [vobbo.com] is better! More file formats, but you can use your own domain, make rss feeds for any search term, and embed videos in other annoying trendy sites [myspace.com] :) [ Reply to ThisVobbo also allows recording from webcam by HMC CS Major (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:46AMRe:Vobbo also allows recording from webcam by TubeSteak (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @02:28AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Vobbo is Better! by Rick Richardson (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:04AMRe:Vobbo is Better! by Rick Richardson (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:24AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Vobbo is Better! by Monkelectric (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:34AM Can we have more "cool" product names in the post? (Score:1, Insightful) by drgonzo59 (747139) on Tuesday November 08, @01:38AM (#13976961) Let's see, we got:YouTubeFlickrSequia CapitalYahooGooglePayPalRevverThe only ones I know are Google, PayPal and Yahoo what are the other ones? Anyone care to explain? Is it just me, or is there anyone else who is confused. Without knowing what those products/brands are it is impossible to understand the post. [ Reply to ThisRe:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by pHatidic (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:24AMRe:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by mridley (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @02:43AM Explained (Score:4, Informative) by TubeSteak (669689) on Tuesday November 08, @02:25AM (#13977086) (Last Journal: Tuesday May 10, @09:36AM) VC = Venture Capital = money to do stuff withSequia Capital = Company that gives out VC if you beg enoughFlikr = Photo sharing site that allows you to tag pictures in your gallery according to their content - this makes them easily searchable -Yahoo: Yahoo bought Flikr a while agoYouTube = video version of Flikr, UL your vids & tag themhttp://www.youtube.com/profile_videos.php?user=cha irdiving [youtube.com]Revver = same thing as YouTubehttp://www.revver.com/video/2367/ [revver.com] [ Reply to This | ParentI still don't really get Flickr by DavidNWelton (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @07:30AMRe:I still don't really get Flickr by bartle (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by dr.badass (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:35AMRe:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by drgonzo59 (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @03:55AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by TheTopher (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @02:52AMRe:Can we have more "cool" product names in the po by Igarden2 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @07:56AMOkay. by oliana (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:48AM3 replies beneath your current threshold. business model? isn't it obvious? (Score:4, Interesting) by idlake (850372) on Tuesday November 08, @01:52AM (#13976992) Their business model is obviously to be acquired by Yahoo!, Google, or Microsoft. [ Reply to ThisRe:business model? isn't it obvious? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @02:30AM Clippy helped! (Score:2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08, @01:53AM (#13976994) / You seem to try to fund your project.   \| Mmh, it seems that your project doesn't || give any money! Fuck off and ask those  |\ hippie money spoiling firms!            /        \     ____ 
captain stabbin cabin
captain stabin ass fucked
captin smut
madison stabbin       \   / __ \          \  O|  |O|             ||  | |             ||  | |             ||    |              |___/ [ Reply to This The flickr of video? (Score:2, Insightful) by hubbah (635375) on Tuesday November 08, @01:53AM (#13976995) (http://flickr.com/photos/robl) Why can't flickr be the flickr of video?A large part of succeeding in this space will be about technology - there are storage and bandwidth issues aplenty. But if your users need to find someone who thinks prancing around the room with their polka-dot boxers on their head is funny or artistic or... original, they'll need community. And flickr has succeeded in building a community around images, where many others have failed. It's no small feat.- Hubbah [ Reply to ThisRe:The flickr of video? by blankoboy (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:16AM How dos VC works? (Score:1) by bubulubugoth (896803) on Tuesday November 08, @02:05AM (#13977029) This is an offtopic, but.. I really dont know.It seems that lots of money, since Venture Capital is high risk capital, but at the same time, high return of invesmet, if the bussines model takes off..So far, as a stakeholder, shouldnt Ive concerned about having the same VC at 2 competing brands: Take Yahoo and Google.With money being a very powerfull weapon for corporative control, should Sequoia cannot be using inside information and just plain playing with the market?Is this ethical? Doesnt this presents a confict of interests?How does a VC works, so this doenst happens?Arent VC regulated? [ Reply to ThisRe:How dos VC works? by FireballX301 (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @02:15AMUm, VCs don't loan money by Sanity (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @06:03AMRe:Um, VCs don't loan money by Fnkmaster (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:22AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Why couldn't they call it MyTube? (Score:3, Funny) by dougTheRug (649069) on Tuesday November 08, @02:26AM (#13977089) (http://douglasheld.net/) I *hate* software that's not called "My whatever". [ Reply to ThisRe:Why couldn't they call it MyTube? by krakit (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @04:28AMThe obvious name should be by commodoresloat (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @05:06AM Wow! (Score:1, Funny) by aywwts4 (610966) on Tuesday November 08, @02:28AM (#13977096) (http://www.thenewforum.net/) They have just craploads of... Crap! Surely this is the business model of the future! [ Reply to ThisRe:Wow! by jrockway (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:46AMRe:Wow! by torpor (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @04:26AM Revver Site Probs (Score:2) by TubeSteak (669689) on Tuesday November 08, @02:34AM (#13977110) (Last Journal: Tuesday May 10, @09:36AM) [Failure instance: Traceback: nevow.stan.NodeNotFound: The pattern named 'content' wasn't found in the template. /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/twisted/int ernet/defer.py:316:_continue /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/twisted/int ernet/defer.py:277:unpause /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/twisted/int ernet/defer.py:358:_runCallbacks /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ twist.py:26:cb --- --- /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ twist.py:17:drive /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ ten.py:87:iterflatten /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ flatstan.py:190:ListSerializer /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ ten.py:74:serialize /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ ten.py:65:partialflatten /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ flatstan.py:245:RendererSerializer /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/flat/ flatstan.py:226:FunctionSerializer /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/rend. py:406:rend /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/loade rs.py:244:load /home/dotz/lib/python2.4/site-packages/nevow/query .py:86:onePattern ]teething problems?Site is working normally now, but I figured some of the /nerds might find this peek into their python interesting [ Reply to This How do we make money? (Score:3, Funny) by Time Doctor (79352) <zakk@icculus.org> on Tuesday November 08, @02:58AM (#13977172) (http://www.timedoctor.org/) Here at YouTube, we get a lot of satisfied customers, and some of them ask us how we stay in business and give away free bandwidth.The answer is simple, volume. [ Reply to ThisRe:How do we make money? by nicklott (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @04:30AMRe:How do we make money? by Time Doctor (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @04:47AMRe:How do we make money? by nicklott (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:12AMRe:How do we make money? by flyinwhitey (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:36AMRe:How do we make money? by nicklott (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:07AMRe:How do we make money? by flyinwhitey (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:37AMRe:How do we make money? by nicklott (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:09AMRe:How do we make money? by benizi (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @11:33AM Forget the business model, YouTube works.. (Score:2) by Dark Coder (66759) on Tuesday November 08, @03:34AM (#13977258) Here using Gentoo Linux distros, I manage to view this site as the most Linux-friendly, easy to categorize than most other video sites.One that caught my attention is the ability to teach oneself in how to dance. Now that is something...Glow Girl [youtube.com] seems to have it licked doing what I thought was a pretty good rave dance... [ Reply to This Supr.c.ilio.us idiom of the day (Score:1) by wct (45593) on Tuesday November 08, @03:34AM (#13977261) (http://www.expandingbrain.com/) From here [c.ilio.us]:flickr of (adj) Generally used to indicate your company/business/idea is cool and ahead of the curve, yet you have no clue why anyone would use it, or how to differentiate it from the ten other Flicker-of's.Examples:We're the Flickr of videoWe're in stealth mode now, but all I can say is, it's like Flickr but for videoWe're seeing a market void for a Flickr of video [ Reply to This LULOP2 open source video CMS (Score:1) by lulop1 (929404) on Tuesday November 08, @03:48AM (#13977286) if you want to create your own Flickr of video, you should try LULOP2 open source [sf.net]. Here is a list of available features [lulop.org]. Deveforum here [lulop.org]. LULOP2 is the software that powers LULOP.com [lulop.com]. So, not just Flickr of video, but a professional-grade platform for online video asset management which can be bent to many purposes. [ Reply to This Review of the Flickrs of Video (Score:1) by DenmaFat (704308) <denmafat@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 08, @05:44AM (#13977549) Techcrunch is way ahead of us on this Flickr-of meme:http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/11/06/the-flickrs-o f-video/ [techcrunch.com] [ Reply to This Missing the most important thing about Revver (Score:4, Informative) by Sanity (1431) on Tuesday November 08, @06:16AM (#13977636) (http://locut.us/~ian/blog/ | Last Journal: Wednesday April 20, @02:26PM) The important difference between Revver and the other sites is that Revver allows the creators of videos to earn money. They do this by giving video creators a 50:50 cut of the advertising revenue generated from the ads attached to that user's video. This approach is unique among the various "Flickr of Video" sites, and is pretty unique across other forms of media too.This is very important, particularly if you consider the growing frustration of video creators as these websites make money from their creativity without rewarding them (see http://ebaumsworldsucks.com [ebaumsworldsucks.com] for a good example of this frustration). [ Reply to This Hope it does better than Trepia (Score:2) by popeydotcom (114724) on Tuesday November 08, @07:49AM (#13977840) (http://www.popey.com/) Trepia [slashdot.org] - the 'iChat on crack' geograpically-based instant messenger - was co-started by the same [jawed.com] guy [jawed.com] as YouTube [youtube.com].Trepia never really got going. Partly due to a small userbase (compared with every other IM), windows-only client (it *just* worked under WINE), and pretty poor location detection (you had to tell it where you are).Looks like Meetro [meetro.com] are taking over that spot, although I note they don't have non-windows clients either. [ Reply to This Why Youtube like services went bust in the past (Score:1) by divadwg (851219) on Tuesday November 08, @08:06AM (#13977913) When Adcritic, which has similar growth to Youtube, went under the popular conclusion was that the cost of bandwidth was too high and that nowadays with cheaper bandwidth, this business model works.Adcritic had videos of ads - the argument was that they wouldnt get sued cos advertisers are happy if people watch ads. But they did - cos the middle men who arrange royalty payments to actors in ads felt threatened and put a spanner in the works. When an ad is being aired all the royalty payments are sorted, but if you show it months later then unless you can arrange a byzantine web of payments yourself (which is not viable for Youtube) you are as vulnerable as adcritic, no matter how cheap your 2005 bandwidth.Much of Youtube's content is user generated, but most of this is crap, the most viewed items are non user generated clips that Youtube does not have the rights for and some of these are memes like the matric ping pong clip that have been doing the rounds of the web for years.The answer to whether Youtube's impressive growth is sustainable, will depend not on whether they have volume, as they say, but whether the volume contains anything othr than a vacuum. That will depend on whether new memes and quality content are supplied by cellphone captured video. The jury is still out on that one. [ Reply to This Ugh, more clones. (Score:2) by AIX-Hood (682681) on Tuesday November 08, @08:07AM (#13977916) The big problem with all of these video sites, which you don't seem to see with the photo ones, is that all they ever do is steal videos from each other and slap their own website url on the video. ebaumsworld, big-boys, collegehumor, etc etc.. I can't remember the others, but there's TONS. Now there's google video and these other guys. I've seen a mass amount of copyrighted video being hosted by all of them also. ebaumsworld and somethingawful had a forum invasion war just this last month because ebaums took tons of the photoshop phriday contest content and put it up on their own site after slapping their name on it. How many more of these sites do we need? Bandwidth is cheap.. I get it already. [ Reply to This Lets not forget Vimeo (Score:2) by everyplace (527571) on Tuesday November 08, @10:27AM (#13978788) (http://everyplace.net/) Vimeo (a side project from the minds behind collegehumor.com etc) is another video sharing site that often gets mentioned amongst these sites. Most recently it was mentioned in the nytimes article about the same subject. I've had really amusing experiences with the software, both in it's ease of sharing videos and discovering others. Flickr integration too! You can't argue with that. [ Reply to This If you think YouTube is cool, (Score:1) by johnrob (790519) on Tuesday November 08, @11:22AM (#13979284) Wait until YouBoob launches! It won't raise any VC, but it will make a lot more money. [ Reply to This Re:Dumb kid yelling at his war game (Score:1) by PHPfanboy (841183) on Tuesday November 08, @01:54PM (#13980799) You just don't get it.By funding crap, Sequoia's other web site company investments will look like real diamonds. [ Reply to This | Parent7 replies beneath your current threshold.