Google Shoots an Elephant

So Google has done the deed, and bought YouTube.

I can't help thinking of a story by George Orwell, called Shooting an Elephant. In it he describes how, as a police officer in Burma, he was called to deal with a rogue elephant.

He went with his gun, and an expectant crowd gathered. It soon became clear that the elephant had calmed down, and posed no danger. But Orwell realised that despite this, he was going to have to shoot the elephant: the crowd that had gathered expected it of him, and whether it was the right thing to do or not, he had to do it. And so he did.

It seems to me that Google's acquisition has much in common with this story. Once news started leaking out, the crowd gathered, and Google had to buy YouTube, whether it was the right thing or not, because the crowd expected it.

In the same way, there is now a growing expectation that Yahoo will buy something big - anything - to "counter" Google's move. And so another crowd begins to form, and another elephant must needlessly die.