The Internet Is A Series Of UTubes (And They're Clogged)

from the ooops dept

Thu, Oct 12th 2006 10:11pm — Mike Masnick

So, while you think enviously about the $1.65 billion YouTube snagged from Google (or, as someone pointed out, approximately $3 million per day of their existence), you can feel some sympathy for Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp -- owners of the site utube.com. Turns out, plenty of people have been hearing the name YouTube and assuming it was UTube. So, those people have been checking out the wrong site... and knocking it completely offline (which is why we won't bother even linking to it now). Of course, the head of Universal Tube knows an opportunity when his web server stats show it to him. He's already turned down a million dollar offer on the domain, and is holding out for at least $2.5 million.

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11 Comments

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`, 12 Oct 2006 @ 10:54pm

Would sell UTube to google for $5billion
I would purchase utube and would sale for nothing less the $5 B
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Brad, 13 Oct 2006 @ 1:34am

Yeah
And that's why you're a penniless idiot.
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SRNissen, 13 Oct 2006 @ 2:43am

Re: Yeah
You're absolutely correct, he is. Who the hell pays $5E9 for a domain name that may or may not be relevant in half a year? A year? Five years?
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Ken, 13 Oct 2006 @ 3:25am

1 million?
C'mon, take the money and run.
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ScaredOfTheMan, 13 Oct 2006 @ 5:25am

First...(sivasankaran) Why is you comment longer than the article? No one Cares....

I hope this guy gets $10M for the Domain Name, good for him!

I hope Yahoo buys it and redirects to their own.
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Rabid Wolverine, 13 Oct 2006 @ 6:18am

People without brains...
Google has gone completely insane.

They spend over a billion dollars to buy something that has not proven that it's going to be a revenue stream for the long term.

And with the attitude of it's founders (YouTube) I'll bet you that Google made a 1.65 billion dollar investment in something that is destined to fail!

Arrogant people should remember:

May Fortuna Frendo Vos...
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Neal, 13 Oct 2006 @ 7:30am

Only an idiot would buy this guys domain for any significant price. Sure it gets a lot of hits and would bring in a lot of advertising income... if he'd switch to another host and put lots of ads on his site. That would only work for him though. He had his site first, he has an undeniable right to use that domain... i.e. he's obviously not typo squatting, so YouTube could never take the domain from him. On the other hand, if someone were to buy this domain from him they wouldn't have any such right to the name. In fact there's not a court in the would that wouldn't recognize this was just a case of typo-squatting. YouTube could grab up the domain in little more than the blink of an eye.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2006 @ 7:39am

Re: On youtube
Dear god (wo)man,

WTF do you keep posting that crap for? what do you have diarrhea of the copy/paste?

If you have something to say, then say it, but quit copy/pasting some other news blog you read once.
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Andrew, 13 Oct 2006 @ 12:55pm

" They take the tube to go to work every week for a bum 350,000 dollar paycheck at the end of the month"

Damn i wish i made that much
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directory, 3 Nov 2009 @ 2:37am

what happened
what happened to the court case ?
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Josef Anvil (profile), 27 Feb 2012 @ 5:25am

Update
The guy waiting for the $2.5 million is still waiting. He should have taken the million when it was offered.
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