Web2.0
CNet seems happy to blow bubbles
I don’t usually like to take shots at competing media (okay, that’s not really true — I kind of enjoy it), but the piece of “news analysis” over at CNet speculating about the value of YouTube has kind of gotten under my skin. I know it’s tempting to take the money that Sony paid for Grouper and divide it by the number of users and then multiply by YouTube’s user base, because I and many others in the blogosphere did exactly that when the news first came out earlier this week.
But at least TechCrunch threw in some caveats about the ComScore numbers for Grouper, and several other people — including Cynthia Brumfield at IPDemocracy and Rafat Ali at PaidContent — have mentioned that the Sony purchase had little to do with the number of users and everything to do with the company’s peer-to-peer technology. The CNet article has a somewhat skeptical comment from an analyst about whether YouTube is really worth $1-billion, but says nothing about how the figure was arrived at based on the Grouper deal, or why there would be any problem with doing simple multiplication based on dodgy traffic figures.
To make matters worse, the piece dredges up a piece in Business Week from March that said Facebook was looking to get bought for $2-billion — a piece that was also widely criticized for being based on little more than a rumour, and was subsequently denied by two Facebook founders. That’s not much depth from an article that goes under the heading of “news analysis.” It makes the bubblicious piece in Business Week about Kevin Rose of Digg look like investigative journalism (Business Week has also jumped into the YouTube valuation pool).
Oh, and one more thing (I can’t resist): the dollar values that have been paid for other companies do not “beg the question” of how much YouTube is worth. They raise the question — begging the question means something else entirely.
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grazr
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busted tees
the sign of another bubble or just infatuation?
[...] But I’m also wondering whether it’s because of a laxity creeping into writing on the web - someone I think may be happening (unless you’re Jeff Jarvis or Dave Pollard) because of the proliferation of content, the ease of publication and the common attitude that to get one’s traffic up (a common web 2.0 mantra, it seems) one needs to “blog early and blog often”. I don’t think it’s just blogs - last night Mathew took a poke at a credulous “happy shiny web 2.0 people” CNet piece about the latest Youtube valuation nonsense that also irked me when I first read it. [...]
Hi, Mathew. Let me start by saying that your shot was both well founded and well executed. Don\’t make any apologies for it. After 2 questionable Biz Week articles and now one from CNet, I start to get the feeling these guys are suffering from blog envy and are trying to work their way back into the cool crowd by making wild statements that only serve to grab short-term attention - but long-term bewilderment.
As a result, they are starting to position themselves as tabloids that make for fun reading but little credibility. Rob touches on this in his comment above.
I don\’t mind seeing this from amateur/young bloggers or commenters that might be a little too caught up in Web2.0 excitement and weren\’t around for dot-bomb. But what excuse do BW and CNet have for their work? Given the fact they\’re intelligent people, I can only conclude this is a traffic tactic gone seriously wrong.
Blog early and blog often shouldn\’t be at the expense of quality and accuracy. That was true 100 years ago and remains true today. Technology, blogs and competition for readership doesn\’t change that.
Best,
George
all that flailing around looking for partnerships, any partnerships, finally paid off as Cox Communications has agreed to administer a little CPR. Fraser Kelton on branding. TechCrunch reviews four file sharing programs. Mathew Ingram gives a business lesson to C|Net and any number of other bubble blowers. As he correctly points out, the mad money that Sony threw at Grouper was more about the technology than the number of users. Sometimes it amazes me how little business sense seems to
Thanks for the comment, George — I think you are probably right on several counts.