06
December
2006
|
03:00 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Light Reading finds 61 video hosting sites and wonders why

Phil Harvey, news editor at the always excellent Lightreading has compiled a list of 61 video hosting/sharing sites.

Phil asked me:

Can you lead me to some thoughts as to why there are so many Web video sharing companies being funded now?

I'm keeping a list of them and, frankly, I don't get it. My readers ask me and I haven't got a clue. But my readers are used to that.

Anyway, here's the latest list:

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=112147

My reply:

Phil, at valuations such as that gained by YouTube, the VCs are willing to roll the dice and maybe win a similar deal. Remember, GOOG has competitors that have to compete along similar markets, and time to market is more important now than ever before. Buy it so that you don't have to build it. Yes, most of those funded will fail so that the VCs can get a small number of winners. Too bad for all the people toiling away in the future failures so that a few can win, but that's the VC way.

Great list! Thanks for putting it together.

-Tom

PS

Also, VCs move in herds, not in packs like wolves. Like herd animals they find safety in numbers :-)