In this new RSA Animate, author and journalist Evgeny Morozov presents an alternative take on ‘cyber-utopianism’ – the seductive idea that the internet plays a largely empancipatory role in global politics.

RSA Animate – The Internet in Society: Empowering and Censoring Citizen? originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-03-17.

• Google is full of very smart people. Very, very smart people. They don’t make blindingly stupid moves that anyone can poke holes in with the most rudimentary questions; if you think you’ve done that, re-examine your question.
• Google essentially got YouTube for free in light of the fact they (internally) believe Google’s stock is overvalued. See, they traded stocks is what they did – this isn’t a cash transaction – and I’m betting a lot of people inside Google think the stock is more than 100% overvalued. 1.6b$ may sound like a lot right now, but Google itself is probably looking at the purchase in terms of percent of market cap (the purchase ringing in at a not-so-stunning 1% or so).
• Google still has deep pockets. They could be litigated by practically everyone and still have deep pockets. But understand this: Google providing a massive new target for those litigants is not a bad thing. It’s a very, very good thing for several reasons:
  1. Google can defend itself. YouTube could not. If YouTube had been sued, it would probably have gone under. Google? Not a chance.
  2. Litigation is in a sense simply moderated debate; precident is setting the timbre of the debate, and Google has a chance to control that dialogue now. What is the future of copyright law in regards to online, user-created content? YouTube didn’t have a snowball’s chance of helping define that debate. Google does. As it has already in so many other areas.
  3. YouTube was always a question mark in my mind. It was vaguely protected by the DCMA, since the site took down offending material when it was asked. But it was a small company hosting an incredible amount of data, just waiting to be either toppled or bought out. And as I hoped, it was bought out.
• Everyone keeps saying that there’s no “business model” for YouTube. But don’t you see? This is exactly the problem this aquisition solves. Google is an advertiser in search of places to put adverts; YouTube is a site with an incredible number of pages and users in search of a business model. This isn’t very hard to understand (Steve Balmer, I’m looking at you), and anyone who purports to be intelligent and still tried to play the “business model” card is either lying about his intelligence or being disingenuous.
• Google already has experience in the internet video arena. They’ve got Google Video which has everything you might want from a video site except for, you know, viewers. YouTube has viewers. There is a synergy to be had here – and I don’t mean that as a buzzword – but not simply between the two video sites, but also with Google’s other offerings. Video, obvious. Search, obvious. But what about GDS? What about Calendar? What about Gmail? What about Reader? The possibilities are almost endless.
• Google owns internet video now, do you understand that? Not only does this enhance their search engine – as they own the data, making crawling it all that easier – but Google can assure their advertising partners that when someone hits up Google Video Search they are going to the best resource on the web, bar none, a quality that ensures more pagehits, and more adclicks.

And those are just a few thoughts. I may add more.

Some thoughts on Google buying YouTube. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-10-11.

Progression of a Mad Hatter originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-08-09.

Amy Millan, “Baby, I” originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-27.

Videoblogging and ashamed. originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-07-18.

Base Jumping originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2006-05-17.