UTube, YouTube & Missed Opportunities
It has come to my attention the company who owns utube.com is sueing YouTube!
YouTube is being sued by an industrial equipment maker whose domain name is Utube.com. Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment said it has been deluged by confused video searchers causing numerous crashes of its site and costing it business. The company’s site once drew a steady 1,500 unique users monthly, Utube said, but that figure has soared to some 2 million per month in recent weeks.
This almost makes me extremely angry. I honestly dont know what UTube are thinking here. Something tells me they heard Google bought YouTube out for billions of dollars and somehow they saw dollar signs in their own eyes. It’s not hard to see how this could happen, they just don’t know how truly stupid they are - for a number of reasons.
1. Sueing Google for this is… well… Stupid.
Do I really need to explain how big Google is. But it’s not just theie size that’s a worry. Try the fact that they are complete and utter experts in the web AND technology AND law. If you are suing for something like this, I’d almost compare this with trying to sue Russia. No matter how good UTube’s their argument is, Google will get out of this quite easily.
2. Monetising Your Website means money… lots of it.
I don’t think UTube realise how much cash they would make if they did the following 3 simple steps:
- Moved their corporate website to utubellc.com or something
(Keep in mind they can still keep their emails on utube.com and also even place a banner to redirect existing clients to their new website) - Place their website on a domain sponsor page
or actually develop a small video/media website with ads.
or even place a one page website with a carefully chose ppc (pay per click) or affiliate program
They could make so much damn money.
For instance…. they are claiming to have 2,000,000 visitors a month. Now lets say they found & utilised a targeted video advertising campaign that gave them 10 cents a click. Keep in mind this is a very very conservative number considering I have basic websites on Google Adsense that can earn up to $1 dollar a click.
Ok now lets just say that conservatively 25% of users clicked through. This all depends on how well the ad is targeted & integrated into the website. I personally believe you could achieve 75% with the right advertising but for now lets say 25%.
Based on the above very conservative calculations, utube.com could make $50,000 in the first month. Not to mention traffic could (and WILL) grow, you could (and WILL be able to) find a better affiliate program in time. This is so scalable as well, for instance 50cents/click at 50% click through at the current rate would mean 10 times this amount: $500,000. This is half a million dollars a month if they play their cards right.
Now I don’t know how large this company is, but honestly how important is a website on a particular domain for a TUBING company. I mean c’mon! An extra 6 million dollars/year revenue is nothing to sneeze at. Especially for just being in the right place at the right time. Not to mention I highly doubt they could settle this at court for any amount near the potential yearly income.
Also don’t forget this will solve their problem with bandwidth issues yet they can still have a reputable website & their email addresses need not change.
Conclusion
I think the best way to look at this would be to compare it to having a Fish & Chip shop on a quiet area of town. Then all of a sudden that part of town gets extremely busy & everyone in the town all of a sudden needs Gummi Bears, and you get lots of people coming into the Fish & Chip store asking for Gummi Bears because you now have the best location in town. You have the option to move out of the busy suburb & keep your current store (being able to convert it into a Gummi bear store or at least refer people to a good gummi bear store for kickbacks). What would you do? What… would you do?
no way man. That company owned utube.com for years. and for youtbue and google to even try suing such a little company is ludicrous. Eat it google, just because google video sucked and you had to shell out 1.2 billion for youtube does not mean you get boobtube, gluetube, and every other tube out there. Looks like google may be screwtubed.
Google isn’t suing anyone? It’s the other way around buddy.
Plus I think you completely missed the point of my post. Did you even read it? Utube should really harness this situation a different way rather than taking the legal route. The numbers don’t lie!
yeah thats 2 million hits a month your gettin for free! no advertising required.
Utube are fuckin stupid if they dont take advantage of this.
they could at least sell their domain to google/youtube.
so every small (relative to google) company should just keel over and play dead when the big american companies sell something popular with a similar name?
show me a company website (not web 2.0, physical products) with PPC advertising on the front page.
they’re screwed any way you cut it. they have to pay for re-printing all their corporate materials, and pay for alerting all their existing customers of the change. not to mention throwing away the page rank and brand recognition that they’ve had for years.
they have to do this _before_ monetizing utube.com, otherwise their website looks cheap and unprofessional to their clients.
they deserve to win.
before you show me some geocities hosted cottage industry doll maker with a yahoo storefront, i mean going through sweets.construction.com Division 15 (mechanical, incl. piping, which is where Universal tube’s competitors are), and finding real companies who would sell ads on their front page.
Adam: there are ways to do it that wouldn’t disrupt the business at all. Many ways to do it. All of the problems you have posed can be solved quite easily. I don’t have the time to post exactly how but I promise you there are definately ways to do this discreetly while raking in the money. Seriously.
it’s not a matter of ‘discreetly’ as much as it is of integrity. when i was reading your post, at first it sounded reasonable, until i thought about the manufacturer’s sites i visit every day, and how weird and gross it would be.
Adam: You do make a good point. And I think it’s the kind of thing that would make someone like UTube not even consider my proposal.
But, I still honestly think there is a way you could do it to make Google/Youtube look like the bad guys by posting further information before continuing to their actual website. I dont know but I still think there’s ways around it.
Sounds like they are just looking for more publicity … another server and the bandwidth to handle the traffic would be less expensive than a lawyer, geez
All your Blaze are belong to Matthew.
[...] Breaking news, Utube has succumbed to the better option (ie: my advice) and monetized their website with a search bar at the top of their homepage. Now you can get instant access to all the wonderful world of poker / dating & xtreme travel. [...]