Wow… I’ve been following this for a little while, and they’ve finally gotten acquired by Google. For an obscene amount of money I might add. Here’s a few thoughts on this:
- I think this will jolt quite a lot of people into starting up companies, just by the sheer amount money the acquisition involves. This could very well be a tipping point for another boom (and hopefully, not a bubble).
- This is proof positive that anyone with a good enough web service (not site) can make it if they play their cards right, and are extremely lucky to boot with the right product at the right time in the right place.
- As for the above, the right place right now is not in Singapore. Specifically, not a service that only targets Singaporeans. I’ve always said that Singapore is way too small, and that hasn’t changed. And will never change. Add to that the fact that YouTube isn’t even profitable… what hopes does a Singapore company have of profiting on an Internet population of 1.5 million (give or take)? Or selling out on 1.5 million users?
- Media is where all the money is right now. But Google has monopoly on the media long tail so it makes sense for them. YouTube and Google are a perfect marriage because YouTube has the long tail of the video community, and Google has a stranglehold on the long tail of advertisers. For the rest of us, if we want to strike it big, we’ll either have to look for a long tail in a new market, or hope to get acquired by a big guy.
I’ve got a feeling that things will start to get interesting…
