Synergy! YouTube & Google Checkout & Cracking That Success Question

Posted by: Heather Green on February 12, 2009

The Internet’s abuzz with news that YouTube finally has a business model…I mean, that YouTube has a new feature where producers can let people download their videos and even buy them using Google Checkout.

Google, of course, charges transaction fees for Google Checkout (though you get a break if you’re a Google Adwords client.)

So there you go, YouTube, which has been struggling to find ways to make money, has a new revenue source…..And because YouTube is using Google Checkout, it might give that service a much needed boost.

According to Rosetta, an interactive marketing agency, Google Checkout is struggling with retailer adoption. A survey of 100 online retailers by Rosetta showed that Bill Me Later is used by 26% of the retailers, PayPal by 25% and Google Checkout by 11%. About 7% use all three.

Then again, will YouTube’s new service really help the two services? Well, we have to start thinking about YouTube as a different kind of service. Because it’s doubtful people would pay much for short clips. And it would likely have to be videos from the major studios and networks, and up until now, the market for paid downloads hasn’t been particularly robust. Forrester Research even proclaimed that it had peaked last year because people aren’t willing to pay and that producers would move to…ad models.

Back to where YouTube started?

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.businessweek.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/

Reader Comments

Thomas Whitney

February 20, 2009 03:09 PM

Thanks for the article.

I prefer PayPal as a rule because digital security is a huge issue with online business and quite frankly I've never had a problem with their service.

I would be interested though in a comparison of the security efforts of all of these services. Was looking on http://www.justaskgemalto.com just last week and it sparked my interest in the subject.

An article on that would be great.

Wes Hawthorne

March 11, 2009 03:32 PM

You are one of the lucky ones however, when you do have a problem with PayPal you will be surprised at the lack of transparency that PayPal provides in resolving the issue. For me personally, I have been bankrupted by PayPal and eBay.

David

March 19, 2009 10:43 PM

We are small online merchant and running into trouble with Pyapal recently: Apparently a crowd of internet criminals use stolen financial information to make purchases on our web site (www.yeedong.com) in the amount of over $5000 USD within about two weeks time frame. After we shipped the products the account owners found out the charges on their credit cards and reversed the transaction. So we ended with lost in over $5000 in two weeks! To make the suffer worse, Paypal disabled our accounts with account balance at $20000 that we won't be able to transfer to our bank account!

It's paypal's fault when it took the payments from the internet criminals and we, the small business, are suffering the double loss.

If there is a lawyer who wants a case, we have one. And please contact us: yeedong666@gmail.com.

Now, we are thinking about using googlecheckout but still hesitating: are we going to experience another evil empire again?

Thank you for your interest. This blog is no longer active.

About

In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

RSS Feed: Blogspotting