Dreams are made of these:Google gobbling Youtube!

Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion
Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:47am ET

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc. said on Monday it agreed to acquire top video entertainment site YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in stock, the highest price yet paid for a consumer-generated media site.

The first deal to value one of the new generation of user-participation Web sites at more than $1 billion combines two of the most popular Internet brands: Google, synonymous with Web search and rapid innovation, and YouTube, a Silicon Valley upstart that has spearheaded the video-sharing craze.

YouTube, which grew in 19 months from a start-up in a garage to now serve up 100 million videos daily, has drawn scrutiny from major media companies for copyrighted television and music videos that users post without owner consent. (Read on...)


Comments

Dear friends,

Is it any wonder that America remains the destination of choice for immigrants? Where nothing is impossible and dreams are limited only by your imagination?

In the US of A: Youtube

Char Hurley (29), Steve Chen ( 27) and Jawed Karim (yes, there is a third guy and Karim left to pursue an advanced degree at Stanford). They met whilst working at Paypal and over dinner and idle small-talk developed the idea for Youtube. Never ever discount small-talk!

This threesome founded YouTube, Inc. on February 14, 2005. In 19 months they have more wealth ( albiet only in Google shares) than many nations' GDP's! I do hope that Karim kept his share-holdings or he will be the most depressed person on earth now-his advanced Stanford degree notwithstanding!

Listen to Charlie Rose's interview with co-founders on Youtube.com ( where else?) and try not to be too envious!

Singapore:Hardwarezone

In Singapore, SPH Magazines Pte Ltd , a company of Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, acquired Hardware Zone PL and its subsidiaries for S$7.1 million. Although this sum may appear like paltry small-change ( or some may call this "peanuts"), it is still evidence that even in little Singapore, dreams do sometimes come true. (Read more..)

However, some feel that Hardwarezone's valuation could have been higher if our media industry were less monopolistic ( read Xenoboy).

China:Baidu

IN the summer of 1998 at a picnic in Silicon Valley, Eric Xu, a 34-year-old biochemist, introduced his shy, reserved friend Robin Li to John Wu, then the head of Yahoo's search engine team. And as they say, the rest is history... ( but not without its share of ups and downs) Read on...

By the next year, 1999, Robin Li had founded his own search company called Baidu and today, it has market capitalisation of US$3 billion and is the world's fourth-most trafficked Web site.

Many of my Gleneagles Hospital doctor friends use Baidu to search for Chinese song lyrics for our regular Karaoke sessions in the doctors' lounge- so it must be true!

And Baidu is doing what no other Internet company has been able to do: clobbering Google and Yahoo in its home market.

Let us dare to dream

Perhaps coming from a small nation has caused us to be more "pragmatic" and parochial in our aspirations and outlook.

Most of us have lived through decades of "molly-coddling" by the authorities and had education in schools where conformity is preferred to rebellion and criticism of "accepted" social norms is frowned upon.

I am a strong advocate of education and it may surprise many here that I believe and am actually thankful that in Singapore, any child that is able and willing has a good chance of climbing the social ladder.

It could be better, but it could also have been worse! However I do not believe in resting on our laurels. What had been good for us in the past may not necessarily work in the future.

Start teaching our kids: "Why not?" instead of "How can?".

Let us not define their boundaries. For them, the sky's the limit!

Steve Jobs, in a speech to Stanford University's commencement ceremony (2005), said these vitally inspiring words that I want to share with everyone,

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

(Read complete speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford University commencement ceremony 2005)

Cheers ( and dream on!)


Dr.Huang Shoou Chyuan