uTube.com Business Stalled by YouTube Purchase Hype 202
prostoalex writes "Google's acquisition of online video sharing site YouTube.com resulted in massive traffic headed to uTube.com, "the number one supplier of used Tube & Pipe equipment in the world!", according to the site. CNN Money reports: "The company, which sells used machinery for making tubes to clients worldwide, has seen its site utube.com knocked off line by millions of online searchers looking for video site. "It's killing us," said Ralph Girkins, president and owner of the 22-year-old business. "All my worldwide reps use our Web site. Customers all over the world use it to bring up photos of the machinery, descriptions and specifications there."""
Insult to injury (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:5, Funny)
2.5 inch PVC happens to be very close to the size of a tennis ball.
Not that anyone would ever special order 2.5" PVC for use in a pneumatic air cannon.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Insult to injury (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
-Eric
Re: (Score:2)
Are you implying that my pipe is inadequate?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Opps. Why the heck did they post links in the summary if they didn't want us to visit it?
It sounds like the company should update their webhosting and look at all the miss directed youtube folks as free ads. Well, I can see where the company is coming from. My dad sells large farm equipment. Their company would never ever just stick an ad in newspaper or do TV ads. They put ads only in ind
Re: (Score:2)
Pshaw! Everyone knows Slashdotters never actually read the articles! They should be perfectly safe!
and now we /. them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and now we /. them (Score:5, Informative)
there's a reason I don't give slashdot my money! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, at least this time I can be proud to announce that I did not RTFA!
Re:there's a reason I don't give slashdot my money (Score:2, Informative)
Re:and now we /. them (Score:5, Interesting)
Two firsts in the one day!
(Someone had to say it. But I agree they made the correct decision)
not true (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now would be a good time for them to sign up for Google ad-words. ((never too late)
1. Have your site mistaken for someone else's because Googles purchased it
2. Start to recieve 'way to much' traffic that causes DDoS
3. Increase your bandwidth and sign up for Google ad-words
4. Profit!!! off the company that 'caused' the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
--- I mean adsense ---
that is why i'm still in the '???' phase of making money - I have no clue.
Re: (Score:2)
Having a dozen links to your competitors scattered around your webpage sounds mildly ineffective to me, but then I'm a picky kinda guy sometimes.
Re: (Score:2)
Put the adsense in a separate frame loaded with with hidden 'video' related words.
And as if that wasn't enough.. (Score:5, Funny)
Poor guys.
Tubes (Score:5, Funny)
Piping (Score:2)
He must be planning to pipe the unwanted traffic down the
Oh, come off it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Next aquisition (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously, utube.com will be Google's next aquisition - just look at how much traffic they get!
Seriously (Score:2)
Google should offer them a bunch of money for "uTube.com", because it has value to Google, but it is a pure liability for the pipe sellers.
Re:Next aquisition (Score:5, Funny)
Put up some advertising/adsense banners (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't get it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, boo hoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
DilPerson: "Gee, Boss, we're an obscure vendor of plumbing piping with the same name phonetically as the devastatingly popular video site. One of these days we're gonna get slammed. Can I have $1000 to set up a couple backup servers?"
Pointy: "Nah. They're looking for videos, not plumbing, right?"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
youtube.com has been registered since 2005
i think when they first made their website that was the last thing they were thinking about.
Are they confused as Ted Stevens? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's 2006 (Score:2, Funny)
Deja Vu (Score:5, Funny)
(I can hear their servers weeping in the corner right now).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, they're not weeping -- that sound you hear is the server's molten case dripping out of the rack.
Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
if you are looking for used hardware, click on Utube
It will save them some trouble in the short run, but my question is shouldn't this be happening all along since youtube is popular BEFORE google decided to buy it out?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But, if the issue is promoted on TV (like it was with the google buyout), then people just hear the name "youtoob" and with the trend of naming things iThis, eThat, it's quite likely that these people think that it should be written uTube.
Noone is going to make the mistake if they get the recommendation in writing - via e-mail, IM, etc - then YouTube can't be confused with uTube - but they do sound the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You would though if you owned a shirt.
Re: (Score:2)
Once Google bought YouTube, it hit the radar of investment bankers, who can't spell.
Nothing to see here, it's up (Score:5, Interesting)
Their site is fine now. Their equipment, though...
They're a surplus machinery dealer, and much of their equipment has seen hard use followed by neglect. The neglect is worse than the hard use. This lathe [utube.com] is a good example. That's a good Monarch precision lathe, but the picture, taken in 2000, shows considerable rust. Most of their gear is like that; it looks like it came out of an abandoned factory. It's repairable; you can send the lathe back to Monarch [lucasprecision.com] for an overhaul. But it's not good for much in its current condition. If there's any rust in the bearings, the precision is lost.
For comparison, see this Monarch Lathe [ebay.com] on eBay. Made in 1950, and still in good shape. Those things will last a century if cared for.
If you have machinery like that around that's not in use, you have to oil it, then wrap it in plastic with some dessicant inside.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Spelling is HARD (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Spelling is HARD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Single-letter prefixes and intentional bizarre "mispellings" are par for the course on the Internet. There's no good way for anyone not already familiar with YouTube to umabiguously know whether it was "utube" or "youtube" if they just heard the name.
Re: (Score:2)
-Eric
They've been trained (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spelling is HARD (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Here in Britain we had a worse case, the Waitrose supermarket made a heavy push into online sales, but rather than use waitrose.co.uk, they chose a new name. They rolled out a huge radio campaign to drive traffic to ocado.com
Lesson in domain names for YouTube (Score:3, Interesting)
But almost $2b later, I can't imagine that the founders care all that much!
Re: (Score:2)
Still available? That parts harder.
Re: (Score:2)
Ancient Slashdot Joke Retread (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Also suffering from YouTubing are... (Score:2)
EwwTube, suppliers of air freshener to travellers on the London Underground and
YuTube, a site dedicated exclusively to promoting the restaurant of David Yu, chinese cook.
Re: (Score:2)
> the restaurant of David Yu, chinese cook.
What does he sell? Tube Steak?
That's not nice! (Score:4, Funny)
Sheesh.. (Score:2, Funny)
Pope: "We have decided to ban certain type of statues inside Vatican City depicting erotic postures. Come here Father Bryan and Sister Camilla, and take of your clothes please. Ok this is pose 1..Bryan put your hand there.. this is pose 2... oh and..(takes off his clothes).. eh..yeah that seems right.. this is pose 3.
A million slashdot editors gasp in shock and then erect similar statues all over the city to inform everyone what kind of statues are not allowed.
Where is his problem? (Score:2)
Ok, I'm quite sure someone beat me to that lame joke. But can someone come up with any reason why anyone on this planet would go to utube.com instead of youtube.com? I mean, who doesn't go to youtube.com by link but actually by typing in the URL? Usually I go there 'cause someone posted a "must check this out" on some bboard.
YAFIYGI (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess they found out the hard way that making normal business operation dependent on the availability of the website, without taking great pains to assure that availability, is asking for trouble.
This time, they got slashdotted by mistake. Next time, it could be a targeted DDoS attack.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh please.. What small to medium corporate site could survive a targeted DDos attack from tens of thousands of hosts? It just is not a concern for most people.
Probably just a misguided marketing ploy anyway (Score:5, Funny)
Utube hosting provider: (putting down fire extinguisher) We want more money, you're burning bandwidth like the U.S. burns fossil fuels!
Utube marketing guy: Wait - I've just hear that Google bought YouTube and people are interested. Hey! This is an amazing marketing opportunity, I wonder how we can make use of it? (Pays hosting provider big wodge of cash)
(...ten minutes of googling later)
Utube marketing guy: My highly expensive and accurate research shows that tubes are incredibly important to our new potential customer base at slashdot.org, they talk about them a lot.
Utube CEO: OK, so how do we get their attention?
Utube marketing guy: Simple, we whine to CNN about how our business is going down the toilet thanks to google, then submit a story to slashdot - they love that stuff!
(...)
Slashdot editor: Hmm, I've been rejecting a lot of stories like this recently, and this one appears to be suitably poorly put together - perfect!
Slashdot editor: (skipping "Dupe Check"/"Spel Check"/"Grahma Check" buttons) *PUBLISH*
Slashdot readers: Oooh, how cruel to link to that site! (Follows link to see if servers really are down or not).
Server room: (indifferent rattle of hard disks)
Utube hosting provider: (puffing on expensive cigar) Suckers! Time to order my new Humvee.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't you mean "going down the tubes "?
Now the name makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Happens a lot... (Score:2)
Ipowerweb* ended up buying iPower.com [ipower.com] from an engineering company [archive.org] because they were sick of getting calls from iPowerweb's clients.
cLive ;-)
*my employer
Overage charges (Score:2)
Rus
Money opportunity (Score:2)
Sell utube.com to Google/YouTube and then buy universal-tube.us, universaltube.us, or any of the .biz extensions.
Its not really that much of a problem for them, and a more practical naming opportunity.
Ooops... (Score:2)
Free Advertising? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Free advertising is useless advertising if it completely misses the target audience. How many of those "hits" looking for youtube.com are going to be interested in used machining equipment and hardware?
My guess is not very much.
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Temporary workaround (Score:2)
Of course this isn't ideal, but it can allow their reps to get in while they work on a permanen
I don't hear sysco complaining (cisco?) (Score:3, Insightful)
sysco - provider of food stuff to eateries
http://www.sysco.com/ [sysco.com]
cisco - provider of network equipment.
Brand Concentration (Score:2)
Hallelujah! (Score:2)
Make the page a little more HTTP-friendly? (Score:2)
Bigger Picture (Score:2)
Back in the day, that would have benef
How can this get worse... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's those poker chips that plug up the tubes. But those are illegal now, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)