I mentioned in passing, in this post, my theory on leaks. You see, in this post I used the figure that 50% of all leaks are authorised by the company involved as either a way to talk up/ hype a launch, or as a way to market test an idea or product. I used that figure because I thought it would be close to tangible, in that it would be hard for many people to argue with it. However my gut feeling tells me something else. I actually really think that the figure is 90%, but I can’t prove it, and I think that this whole Google/ YouTube negotiation stuff fits into the 90%. It’s controlled. Way to controlled. I don’t for one second believe that somewhere along the communications chain that some one has leaked without authority. Case in point: the b5media VC funding. Sure, we are only small fry, but get this: we told all of our bloggers hours before it became public. Of 90 odd people, none of them leaked it. Sure, Google is a whole lot bigger again, but Google employees are loyal. So to are their lawyers. So to would be the Youtube inner team and their lawyers. Mark my words, they would have swarn everyone involved to a strict cone of silence. The chances of someone leaking is about 1 in 10, so it’s not impossible, but 9/10 chance it’s unlikely, which is why I totally think the Techcruch rumour is true. Some one got the green light to leak this news, so that Google could see how the market would react. And hence, after days of free market testing (feedback) Google now has a decision to make. On what I’ve read, if they thinking about buying YouTube, they will. Sure, there’s been some negative stuff, but hey, no one really knows who Mark Cuban is outside of the United States anyway!. It’s a developing story, but one that will no doubt end up as being one of those stories that will last 20-30 years in folklore 🙂
Duncan: A lot of these leaks seem to happen at very senior levels, too. I always assumed leaks were from disgruntled employees, etc., yet almost every time a leaker’s identity is revealed, it turns out to be a senior official, usually within one or two degrees of separation from the top.
I had to put it down somewhere so forgive me Duncan.
Google’s impending acquisition of YouTube is to my mind the biggest risk to Google’s long term future.
I’m no expert but I can’t see Google ever recouping the expenditure it will have to dole out to buy what is another limited potential file sharing phenomena.