Blog P.I.

Sure, why not? That whole “video” thing was just getting in the way — nobody actually believed Google was storing all those clips of The Colbert Report on magnetic tape, I hope.

I won’t pretend to know whether Google is ever going to see the $1.65 billion they just put down on YouTube ever again, but I will pretend to know what this is going to mean for news consumers toward the end of the year.

You see, it’s only been about 10 months since Time Magazine declined to choose an individual for its much-devalued Person of the Year award, so it only stands to reason they’re back in the hunt. It’s also been nearly a decade since Time named someone (or thing) from the tech industry — Jeff Bezos in 1999 — and more than 20 years since they named the PC its “Machine of the Year.” Also, it’s not an election year, so it won’t be the winner of the presidential election.

It’s time for another gimmick! And, in this year of the Lamonsters and Macaca and Lonelygirl15, I have a guess as to what it will be:

P.S. Of course, other questions remain, including all of the important ones. Such as what does happen to Google Video? And what will Mark Cuban say now? Actually, he’s already sounded off at Blog Maverick. And though still sees a rocky future ahead for the proud new parent company (he calls them “crazy”), he offers a small concession, in his semi-literate way:

And what if Im completely, absolutely wrong and no one sues anyone ? That everyone just loves the fact that their content is available to tens of millions of viewers and advertisers and Youtube and Google definitely qualify to be protected behind the Safe Harbors of the DMCA ? That Im an idiot and it really is different this time, and the content companies have all recognized that ? Well, I’m ready for that too. I went ahead and registered www.effingreat.com because thats how much fun its going to be using Filesanywhere.com features to support a “load everything you own and share it with world” website. I will host in the same way as Youtube and Google. Upload in the same, dont ask, dont tell approach. I will sell ads however they do.

This seems rather petulant for a man worth upwards of a billion dollars. On the other hand, that’s billionaires for you. [Update: Rex Hammock, commenting on the same post, calls Cuban "an expert on crazy. And I think I mean that as a compliment."]

In the tech blogosphere (which, to be fair, is the original blogosphere) most of the discussion so far is mindless chatter, though Michael Arrington sat in on the joint conference call and took notes.

P.S. Valleywag is calling the acquisition GoogTube. With all due respect, I like mine better. And yet, Robert Scoble’s typo repetition is actually better than what either of us came up with.

P.P.S. Not Paul Begala suggests Gtube:

He may be onto something.

Update: More substantively, now that it sounds like Google Video will remain and YouTube will continue to be called YouTube, I expect that YouTube will be relieved of pressure to compete with Apple’s iTunes Music Store — which by now is hardly an accurate name* — and can continue on its path to becoming the MySpace of video. Google Video, meanwhile, with its longer videos, higher resolution, downloadability and monetization, now must compete with iTMS.

Schmidt/Brin/Page vs. Murdoch and Jobs? That should be fun.

• I have since been informed that with the release of iTunes 7, the iTMS is now simply called the iTunes Store. Still not quite right.