YouTube and the Importance of Top-of-Mind
Top-of-mind was just sold for $1.65 Billion dollars. That’s the amount Google paid for the social video site YouTube, which owns the top-of-mind space for the word “video” in the minds of the populace.
When I think of the word “video”, I immediately think of Youtube. When people want to upload “video”, they immediately think of YouTube. When people talk about where they saw the latest episode of the Daily Show, they talk about YouTube. When advertisers think of “video”, it’s all YouTube.
YouTube is what people think about when they think of the word “video”.
And because YouTube has top-of-mind, it means that people are not thinking about all the competing services out there. Google Video, Yahoo Whatever, or Microsoft Whatever, and the countless other video startups that want even a sliver of that ridiculous pie. Those services have very little top-of-mind share for the word video. (for the record, it’s MSN Soapbox and simply Yahoo Video).
Top-of-mind share is really interesting because it has the potential to be so transient, yet isn’t. We’re talking about what web site comes to mind when you think video, and right now that site is YouTube. Couldn’t that change in an instant? Couldn’t some other service easily eclipse that overnight, and tomorrow everyone will simply have another site in mind when the word video pops up?
Google doesn’t think so. That’s why they spent an unimaginable amount of money on a site who they compete with directly with their own video service. Google already has much of the technology. It’s not like they’re just blindly entering the video game…they’ve been trying! And in one year YouTube has rebuffed their attempt!
Google is making a huge bet that YouTube will stay top-of-mind for a long time to come, at least long enough to gain much of their money back on advertising and search-related ventures.
Google, of course, has top-of-mind for the word “Search”. They have for several years now, and probably will for several more. Even in an age where Microsoft can redirect you to their search engine simply because you’re using their crappy browser, Google has conquered the Search top-of-mind. So, even if other companies come up with better search than Google, it will still take years before they wrest away top-of-mind.
The importance of top-of-mind cannot be understated. If a web site has top-of-mind, it is the first thing people talk about. Like MySpace in social networking, Netflix in movie rentals, Microsoft in monopolies, Macintosh in fine computing. 
And now YouTube in video. Even the founders of YouTube realize this. Check out Chad and Steve’s personal message about the announcement. They acknowledge their dominance in video, saying that “two kings have gotten together, the King of Search and the King of Video”.
Susan Mernit has a great piece on the YouTube deal. She’s looking at it from the perspective of what Google Didn’t Buy. And what Google could have bought but didn’t, in her estimation, is a little company called the New York Times. She points to the staggering implications of this, and what it means for social media:
“The point here–just to kick it a little harder–is that this is yet more evidence how social media platforms that are shifting the paradigms in a profound way–Not only does YouTube have a mass market, it’s video on the web appeal that the more high-brow Times will never have (Is YouTube the next MTV?). Furthermore, it’s a platform that gives Google the opportunity to morph into a multimedia MySpace ecosystem, way beyond what Orkut could ever be–and most cruelly, it’s something that teens and twenty-somethings care about, which may no longer be the case for The New York Times.”
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1. VeraBass 1:38pm, Tue 10th, 2006
This immediately reminded me of a friend who would always say, “I want to be the Kleenex of (fill in your product category here)”, an example of a brand defining the product.
Vera
2. Hu Dou 3:24pm, Tue 10th, 2006
“The importance of top-of-mind cannot be understated. If a web site has top-of-mind, it is the first thing people talk about. Like MySpace in social networking, Netflix in movie rentals, Microsoft in monopolies, Macintosh in fine computing” — This is great. Can we reverse engineering these sites: digg, del.icio.us, techmeme? That means, when digg will be top-of-mind?
3. Sheldon Kotyk 5:32pm, Tue 10th, 2006
They also paid for key advertising spots for adwords and the ability to data mine people’s searching habits on video which is what they really want.
Yes, youtube is top of mind but I don’t think they’d pay 1.6B or whatever incredible amount they paid if it didn’t meet the other pieces of the pie.
4. Daniel Szuc 10:49am, Thu 12th, 2006
My questions are : Why? With the 100 other possible competitors how did YouTube get top of mind?
What are some of the key factors?
5. Greg verdino 10:36am, Fri 13th, 2006
Certainly top-of-mind awareness was a key factor, but as importantly if not more importantly, Google bought a community of users. YouTube isn’t interesting because it has the best video sharing technology (it doesn’t) or because it has a vast library of video content (at this point, nobody can really say how valuable UGC is, nevermind the liabilities that come with unlicensed user-shared video from mainstream media sources.) YouTube is interesting because for one reason or another it has attracted a large, active community of users who, by and large, have deep engagement with the site. Engaged users are great for advertisers… Google’s ad words model is fantastic but ultimately Google’s core search site is a hit-and-run experience (you come, you search, you find, you go.) YouTube is anything but – you come, you share, you watch, you hang out. And that opens a world of new advertising possibilities for Google (whose internal video strategy has been less than compelling and who has clearly been looking for ways to branch out beyond the paid search ad model — at various points throughout this year they have announced plans to sell ads on radio, sat radio, print, digital signage at gas pumps and OTHER media company’s video sites.)
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7. Funny videos blog 7:58am, Wed 17th, 2007
What about other videoservices?