Google and UTube

Everybody knows about the Google/YouTube merger. Did you know about the unintended consequences that had on YouTube's homophonic predecessor UTube?

[L]ike a lot of folks -- millions of them, in fact -- you might have accidentally gone to UTube.com, the site for the Ohio machine company (specializing in used tube mills, pipe mills and rollforming machines) that has suddenly vaulted ahead of Whirlpool to become the sixth most popular manufacturing site on the Web, according to Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation owner Ralph Girkins.

"We're not a Whirlpool or a G.M. We couldn't even keep the site up this week," said Girkins, who finally got the homepage of his 18-person company back online as of Friday morning (October 13) after major outages since the YouTube deal was announced. This unintentional traffic spike has been going on for awhile, but the billion-dollar buyout sent things through the roof (see "May We Suggest GooTube? Google Buys YouTube In $1.6 Billion Deal").

In August, the last month he kept count, Girkins said UTube got 68 million hits and by September the numbers were so far off the charts for his specialty site -- whose domain he has owned since the late 1980s, before the commercial World Wide Web even launched, he notes with pride -- that he stopped counting. "Before YouTube came around, the traffic was very low, but since they've been around we've just been trying to maintain it and this week it got impossible," he said.

Girkins said he'd consider selling the domain name and starting fresh, but so far no one from Google or YouTube has officially approached him with an offer, though plenty of calls have come in from third parties offering to take the domain off his hands for $1 million or more. "We'd consider selling it," he said, "But it would be a substantial amount. Definitely more than $1 million."

CNet reported there was an offering for his domain, sort of.

On Monday, Girkins told Reuters that an intermediary who said he was acting on behalf of YouTube had offered $1 million to buy the Internet address. Girkins said turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million.

A YouTube representative said it had not made an offer and had no plans to do so.

On Thursday, Girkins said he had received about 20 phone calls from people who offered to sell his site for him. He has not been in contact with Google or YouTube, he said.

I think somone may eventually buy him out. If there's that much misdirected traffic, it'd be in Google's interests to do so.

NPR's Marketplace has a chat with Girkins. At least he's up and running again. I hope his provider was able to cut him a break on the bandwidth charges.

(I can't believe Dwight didn't spot this one.)

Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 14, 2006 to Bidness | TrackBack