The story of my startup (and the Google/YouTube API trap)

http://www.totlol.com/t/story

by TotlolRon • 17 years ago

352 119 17 years ago

jaddison• 17 years ago

I have to say, it all sounds a bit thin - but even then, I would think you deserve the effort of a reply to your situation.

If you are able to provide genuine valuable content to users through an integrated API service (no matter who the provider of that API is), Google should place high 'content' value on that as well. After all, Google wants the web to be of 'value' to users, which in the grand internet cycle, brings them money through Adwords, etc.

It could be all coincidence. In order to clear it up, it makes sense that open, honest communication between Google and you (Ron) starts again.

Best of luck - I certainly hope it can be cleared up, as I hate to think of the potential business ideas (and revenue!) that will be discarded if developers feel they can't trust Google and its services.

angelbob• 17 years ago

"Not trusting Google" seems to be a theme on the internet lately.

Presumably Google, being no fools, will pick up on that and understand that it's a problem, both for advertisers and developers.

It's just a question of how long it takes them.

It's entirely possible that many of these situations with Google looking bad are primarily a result of them just not communicating. But presumably Google could figure that out, too. They're the only ones with the information to do so.

ytNumbers• 17 years ago

It seems that several different people at Google did plenty of communicating with Ron. What we have here is (NOT) a failure to communicate!

norswap3• 17 years ago

Evidence shows that big companies tends to ignore that kind of problems altogether. Think of Microsoft and Apple with their Appstore.

mcantelon• 17 years ago

>It could be all coincidence

They did change the TOS without notice and without announcing it. The fact that the story hit TechCrunch last June and Google hasn't cleared up the situation doesn't put Google's actions in a good light. My guess is there was a change in business strategy at some point and Totlol is a casualty of this.

kprobst• 17 years ago

Live by the cloud, die by the cloud.

neurotech1• 17 years ago

YouTube isn't a cloud service, its a video hosting service.

Hint: Try and backup your "cloud" content - If possible.

dylanz• 17 years ago

Excellent post Ron. I've been semi-following Totlol for a while now. I have kids, and I think it's a fantastic product. There needs to be something like Totlol out there. I think once you have kids, you suddenly realize this :)

Good luck on the job search. I'll cross my fingers the legal walls crumble, as I'd love to see you working on a project you've started and are excited about.

sharms• 17 years ago

After reading the entire article, this definitely impacts any interest I had to integrate with google maps, youtube or google app engine.

I wonder what the chances are they will change gmail terms the way they did to author (ie deceptively) and if I should look into other providers.

johns2• 17 years ago

You should be leery of building a business that piggybacks on any service, Google-owned or otherwise. The first question you should ask yourself if you build something on XYZ is, "What will we do if XYZ is no longer an option?" If you don't have an answer, find a new idea.

sgoraya• 17 years ago

Playing devil's advocate, I would counter that many companies have successfully built themselves around 3rd party API's from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc...

One option would be to pay for better ToS (ex: an 'enterprise' version of the API - though Youtube does not seem to have such option).

fauigerzigerk2• 17 years ago

Sure, everyone should think about that, but there is a traditional way to mitigate some of the risks. It's called a contract. Very few services of any kind would exist if everyone just walked away.

My conclusion from all of this is that the web is not as different from earlier "platforms" as some make it appear. If I want to build on someone's service, I make a contract that sets out the rights and obligations of either side.

I'm not a lawyer so I wonder how ToS are related to contracts. Does google have the right to change the ToS unilaterally without notification or agreement?

akronim• 17 years ago

If you're going to depend on one of these services for something serious, you should always have a plan B. Architect things so you actually can use your B plan, at least in theory, which means avoiding integrating to specific features.

YouTube - can you swap to Vimeo or a white label provider? Revver? GMail - have your real email (on your own domain) redirect there. App Engine - outlook not so good!

ajross3• 17 years ago

I don't see any deception here. There was no contract, nor promise made. Google had a free service. They didn't like how it was being used (probably by other sites) and changed the terms to something they liked better. It's their service; they aren't honor-bound to preserve other people's business models.

Would you say the same thing if Google thought it was so great that they started a competing product?

waterlesscloud• 17 years ago

The part that bothers me is where he says they asked him a lot of detailed questions about his model in such a way that they planned on using the details for their own service. I don't see that as being a good thing in the least.

orangecat3• 17 years ago

They didn't like how it was being used (probably by other sites) and changed the terms to something they liked better.

And that's fine. The deception was in not telling him about it and inducing him to continue down a path with no upside. It's similar to the GIF patent fiasco where Unisys deliberately avoided publicizing their patent until the format was entrenched. It may be legal, but it's scummy.

pkulak• 17 years ago

I'd like to take this opportunity to rant against sites that have some global forward set up to bounce a mobile user from any page on the site to the mobile home page. I'd love to read your post, but I'm on a train right now with my iPhone and the only page you're willing to serve me is your main app page. Those kinds of redirects should only be set up for the home page.

TotlolRon3• 17 years ago

on iPhone -> Click Learn More > and the link to the story.

cominatchu• 17 years ago

append ?setui=desktop

johns2• 17 years ago

Or if you're going to redirect to the mobile version on pages other than the home page, make sure you're redirecting to the same article, just formatted differently.

oxtopus2• 17 years ago

I second that. I'm on vacation.

timinman• 17 years ago

This is the first time I've seen your site - it seems pretty great, but I'd love to be able to browse video without having to authenticate.

pohl• 17 years ago

I believe Act Five "Not to Die" explains this:

For the first time in my life I built something according to lawyers' guidelines not users' wishes. This is how the current set-up of Totlol came to be. This is why users are nagged.

city41• 17 years ago

I'm very apprehensive about doing anything that relies so strongly on a third party service, and this is unfortunately a great illustration why.

I'm very conscious about always having a means to maintain control over my product. That might mean I'm actually shooting myself in the foot in other ways. But at least I can (hopefully) never fall victim to a situation like this.

mtw2• 17 years ago

they should have uploaded the videos to vimeo/dailymotion and other video websites at the same time

mtts4• 17 years ago

It probably wouldn't be so much of a problem if you could enter into some kind of deal with Google where you would pay a monthly fee in return for access to their API (for example) and Google would have a financial incentive to allow you to keep using it.

In this case, however, the guy was expecting to get something for free to build his business on and that, I think, is just plain silly.

ciupicri• 17 years ago

Given the AdSense/AdWords scandals, I doubt that the financial incentive would be so strong.

vaksel5• 17 years ago

i think you are going about this all wrong.

You should just ignore Google's TOS...hell everyone else does, it's much easier to beg forgiveness than it is to follow the rules. + do you really think they'd ever cut your access?

Think about the shitstorm that'll happen..."GOOGLE is raping our children by shutting down their favorite site!"

The chance of them pulling the plug is insignificant, and you destroying your site over some fine print is crazy. Read the fine print of any website, any service, all of them have the "by using this site you grant us the rights to your children"

I'm not saying you should be complacent, you should still create a backup version of the site, so that if google ever shuts you down, you can instantly switch to a ~1000 video backup from places like vimeo. Why? So that you have something to offer to your users, while they rebuild your database with vimeo links.

Throwing in the towel over something that might happen in the future(contrary to common sense) is simply irresponsible.

dimitar• 17 years ago

Not to mention what huge publicity will the shitstorm will be for your site. But still I think you should have a plan B..

vaksel5• 17 years ago

exactly, just imagine a CNN story of a few kids talking through tears..."those <sniff> meanies <sniff> at gaggle <sniff> are big bad doo doo heads"

marketer• 17 years ago

I completely agree. Youtube serves so much video, they wouldn't even notice the hosting overhead from a small site like totlol. Plus there are a number of ways to circumvent the TOS.

I can think of other big problems with the totlol idea, but none of them are related to the TOS..

norswap3• 17 years ago

I surely wouldn't be willing to take that kind of chance if it were my start-up. Moreover, Google is aware of the startup existence, and probably wouldn't hesitate to sue it would it violate the TOS. And if they did, they'd probably get away just fine.

vaksel5• 17 years ago

you don't get sued for ToS violations, you just get your service shut off.

The action that he is afraid of, is the equivalent of Google suddenly deciding that they'll no longer offer gmail for free. The odds of that happening are more or less insignificant.

wheels• 17 years ago

Notable point: YouTube got where it is by ignoring the TOS of a huge percentage of the content it serves.

chronomex• 17 years ago

I haven't heard this and it sounds interesting. Can you provide a link?

TotlolRon3• 17 years ago

Nope. An API provider and API user form a relationship that should be based on respect. I respected Google. What did they do? Read the link.

vaksel5• 17 years ago

yeah what exactly did they do? Change a few lines in their terms of service agreement that nobody reads? The HORROR!

Seriously dude they didn't shut you down overnight like craigslist constantly does, they didn't suddenly start charging you for the API...all they did was write in a few extra clauses into their ToS. Nothing actually changed for you.

These things are always in the terms, they are just put there by lawyers, so that they have some options 20 years from now when they might need it against a real culprit.

And as far as your API provider/user relationship based on respect, that's a load of bull. As far as I can see the only thing Google is "guilty" of is changing a few lines in their ToS, which is entirely in their right. You on the other hand are guilty of attacking them over something that they haven't even done yet. Smearing them with what ifs about events that didn't even happen yet.

If Google shuts you down, then you can bitch and moan. But until they do, what exactly are you complaining about? Hell it's already been 6 months since they changed the ToS, if the ToS specifically targeted you(like you imply), you'd have been banned already.

gcb3• 17 years ago

You do that, they simply cut your access from the api. The end.

by someone who had access cut from other google apis.

vaksel5• 17 years ago

and that's when you switch to your backup with 1,000 videos, while all those users, you woudln't have had otherwise, go and restore the site's content using something like Vimeo.

sscheper• 17 years ago

vaksel, great comment. You took the words out of my mouth.

Sukotto2• 17 years ago

Not as irresponsible as advising someone to deliberately violate a legal agreement.

I think I'm in the minority on this since as I write this, your comment is +41 and I see similar ones lower with a lot of agreement.

So, downmod me if you want... I still say shame on you.

"Just do it... "everyone else is doing it"... what a load of bs

shrike• 17 years ago

IANAL. It's important to note that not everything in a contract/TOS/EULA is binding. The terms of any contract can be subject to litigation. If I sign a contract agreeing to sell you my kidney for $10,000 that clause of the contact will likely be voided by the courts if either party decided to litigate. There is also the fact the the contract cannot be negotiated, I think lawyer call it the "war of paperwork" AFAIK a contract isn't valid unless the option to negotiate is available. There is more info here - http://www.ReasonableAgreement.org

bdonlan• 17 years ago

Google may not be able to take action against him, but they can certainly revoke his API key.

Sukotto2• 17 years ago

Does the EFF (or someone like them) handle TOS violation litigation? If not, how can a little one-man shop compete against an entity like Google in court?

Sure, the reasonableagreement people sound cool... but who, specifically, is going to front him the money needed to litigate against MegaCorp?

Batsu• 17 years ago

Am I wrong in thinking Google has a simple base argument in that recreating Youtube without Google's ads is a bad thing for the future of their site?

It's a shame that a legitimate site may have brought the issue to light, but it's always only a matter of time before it turns into a method of generating revenue by creating dozens of Youtube clones using Youtube's API, and replacing all the ads with porn.

norswap3• 17 years ago

Theorically speaking, you could recreate youtube whitout the ads juste by running a crawler that would create an html page embedding each video it finds. Of course the API facilitate that - but if the website doesn't have some solid added value, then it's no use at all (you're better off installing Adblock).

Besides, "inline" video advertisement has it's purpose.

Sujan• 17 years ago

Google should offer you a job. Or buy the site. Or do both. I think it would greatly benefit both parties.

rayval• 17 years ago

I went to the TotLol web site and it looks great.

Very clean elegant design. A high quality user experience.

Unfortunately, I agree with a previous comment, that creating a filtered replica of YouTube content, and delivered free of YouTube's ads is not something anyone can reasonably expect YouTube to continue to do over the long-term, regardless of what they might have said or not said at a point in time.

To build a business plan solely around scraps of bandwidth and server resources from a third-party site makes no sense. No need to bring up evil traps and conspiracy. It's just plain common sense on the part of Google to protect their business interest.

I am sympathetic to the entrepreneur's plight, but I think this problem represents a big gaping hole in business planning. I suggest seeking seasoned advisors who understand that only the paranoid survive.

petercooper• 17 years ago

YouTube has supported and continues to support the embedding of videos into other sites. It's not as if TotLol is circumventing the usual scheme. That's why YouTube are now showing banner ads within videos and I expect they might try interstitials too someday.

blasdel• 17 years ago

But TotLol is circumventing the usual scheme -- they're using their own flash player instead of embedding youtube's, which means they never show Google's lower-third banners or intersitial videos.

iamelgringo2• 17 years ago

...creating a filtered replica of YouTube content, and delivered free of YouTube's ads is not something anyone can reasonably expect YouTube to continue to do over the long-term, regardless of what they might have said or not said at a point in time.

Google makes billions monetizing other people's content. They scrape zillions of web pages, index them, and then monetize the whole thing by running ads next their service. How is that different than one person developing a niche audience based off of Google's content and trying to monetize that?

Sure it makes sense for Google to limit access to protect their business plan. But, it is hypocritical and kind of a dick move on their part to try to legally prevent other people from doing what they've done from the beginning.

I have a hunch that moves like this will lead to a lot more anti-trust law suits against Google.

houseabsolute3• 17 years ago

This is stupid. Filtering the content and hot linking to it while stripping the ads is very different from what google does in its profitable search businesses.

mtw2• 17 years ago

at the beginning, the author states publishers would upload the videos directly to the website with one direct button; however existing content publishers wanted the YouTube audience, hence the move to YouTube API.

robjamaz• 17 years ago

your dedication and honesty is commendable...Don't give up!

ethikal• 17 years ago

This really stinks of something. The author is a bit sensationalist. We are also clearly missing Google's part of the story.

GoboGobo2• 17 years ago

The author thought to replicate Youtube for a specific audience. First with his own content, that didn't work too well. Luckily enough, Youtube created an API to get specific content.

So now the author had the same business model as Youtube, except aimed at a specific part of their audience, and he was using their content, not paying them a dime, and wants to make money off it.

The story makes perfect sense. For Google.

alexro• 17 years ago

Not to miss part of the story is where GOOG declines giving Totlol special privileges for the API, despite all they say about how great Totlol is.

chaostheory• 17 years ago

I understand the need for Google to eek out a profit out of Youtube. What really bothers me (if the post is accurate) is that Google wasn't as transparent as they should have been.

marcofloriano• 17 years ago

Man dont give attention to the bad comments and even for Google. That´s all about YOU and YOUR GUTS. You did an amazing job, just keep it up, keep on going, keep working and dont stop no matter what ! There´s tons of job to do and only you can get it done. Go rock the world !

mtts4• 17 years ago

I'm sure totlol.com is a nice site and all but ...

The guy's making money showing clips that are hosted somewhere else without reimbursing the people that actually pay for the streaming bandwidth.

The people that do pay for the bandwidth, ie YouTube/Google, notice what he's doing and change their terms and conditions to reflect what has been their intent all along, namely that ordinary consumers can use their API and what have you to build mini sites on which they can show a selection of clips to a small group of friends, but that rules out the egregious freeloading this guy was planning to do.

So the story here isn't that this guy was cheated, it's that Google/YouTube were naive enough to think that if they provided all their bandwidth for free no one would take advantage of that and that now, possibly thanks to totlol.com, they've learned.

jmonegro• 17 years ago

Not really, if Google/YouTube wanted to, they would put ads on embedded videos, just as they do on YouTube (I don't think I've seen ads on embedded videos).

mattmaroon2• 17 years ago

One of the only things Dave Winer has ever said that I agree with is:

"Sometimes developers choose a niche that's either directly in the path of the vendor, or even worse, on the roadmap of the vendor. In those cases, they don't really deserve our sympathy."

The author built a site that really is a feature YouTube should just have, and he even did it on the YouTube platform. One that once they know about they can just build without much effort.

I won't say nothing good could come of that (small acquisitions happen that way frequently) but this is why pretty much the only thing I'll ever build on a platform is games. Facebook, YouTube, or Microsoft are never going to up and say "hey we need to make a football game because that's really lacking here". Any utility feature at all is going to either fail or get cloned.

The proper way to go about this (though I've no idea how) would have been to avoid that reliance on YouTube. Perhaps syndicating content from big YouTube competitors, licensing original, etc. I really don't know the niche well enough to be helpful, but I certainly would advise not being just a feature on someone else's site and going for some value add.

Granted none of that negates the fact that this looks like a dickish move on Google's part.

lionshare3• 17 years ago

not true. Google is a platform provider and their path is to let niche and verticals work independently. And even if in the path, Google can handle it without pick-a-brain meetings with the micro startup in order to smush them

mattmaroon2• 17 years ago

YouTube is first and foremost a destination with an ancillary platform. Something that lets people make and curate collections of videos on it is a lot like what Netscape was to Windows.

trevorturk2• 17 years ago

I've been toying around with a prototype application that uses the YouTube API, and I remember the first time I came across this passage in the TOS very well.

Read it again, closely:

"...the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of the API Client containing YouTube audiovisual content, unless other content not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales."

That's _really_ vague.

How is one to determine what "sufficient value" might mean here? It seems to me that this passage might as well read "you're ability to place advertisements on a web page that uses the YouTube API is subject to our whims."

Of course, I understand that building an application that uses something like the YouTube API is inherently risky, and I think YouTube is well within their rights to have a clause like this in their TOS. I get it. But if you're like this Totlol guy and you're trying to build a business that might support you financially with revenue derived from advertising... I think you're right to be scared off.

mtts4• 17 years ago

It's not vague at all. If you're totlol.com and all your content is from YouTube, you're in violation of the TOS. If, on the other hand, you have a blog that occasionally posts YouTube videos but a lot of other content as well, you should be fine.

trevorturk2• 17 years ago

But what if you're providing a service that's built on top of the YouTube API and provides value in that it helps people find interesting videos for their children to watch?

What might constitute "sufficient value" in that case?

diggboard• 17 years ago

I think the moral of this story is "don't build a business that relies on a single other players API." Talk about a single point of failure.

lunchbox• 17 years ago

Every business takes risks.

If you build a business that relies on a single other player's API, you risk having them encroach on you when you become successful.

If you insist on never putting yourself at anyone's mercy (either by writing your tools from scratch or waiting until you have a cross-platform solution), you risk being trounced by someone else who does, or spreading yourself too thin and delivering a mediocre product.

The former concerns me; the latter terrifies me.

Countless people have become rich by building products that depend on one company's platform (think iPhone, Windows, Office, .NET, Facebook, etc). This post is just a reminder that it's not a panacea.

lionshare3• 17 years ago

Google is NOT other player. They are the Internet

woadwarrior01• 17 years ago

Going by that logic, I probably shouldn't be writing iPhone apps :)

BTW, Panic's Audion vs iTunes story seems similar from a tangent. http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

warp• 17 years ago

Unless of course you build many businesses, so that any single one of them is not a single point of failure.

idlewords• 17 years ago

Anyone else feel uncomfortable about parking toddlers in front of a computer screen?

access_denied3• 17 years ago

Yes, me too. Reading tip: http://www.violentacres.com/archives/345/adventures-in-volun...

GoboGobo2• 17 years ago

What does a stupid parent trying to adopt a puppy have to do with parking kids in front of a computer screen?

Like the story you linked to said, leaving a dog alone with a three year old is dangerous. There is no real danger in looking at videos with your kid (or letting them watch it themseles).

fauigerzigerk2• 17 years ago

Oh my, haven't we been debating this endlessly wrt TV? I don't know that anything substantial has come out of it other than that parents who want to "park" their toddlers will find a way to do so.

Other parents will use YouTube or TV or anything else as a source of inspiration, engagement and communication in addition to many other things they do with their kids.

And where parents are not interested in their kids and just park them in front of a screen, I'm comforted by the fact that computer screens, as opposed to the TV screens, provide access to a lot more than passive entertainment.

oxtopus2• 17 years ago

YouTube has a big problem of third-party sites that blindly index their content for the sole purpose of selling ads on traffic derived from organic search results. From personal experience in working with google legal, I can tell you that the timing is likely coincidental. Regardless, they include such verbage for leverage in protecting brand identity and trademark. I suggest two things before jumping to conclusions: 1. Consult a lawyer, and 2. Work with your contacts at YouTube to get the right person to review your situation.

Good luck, and as a father-to-be I hope everything works out.

tphyahoo• 17 years ago

good job communicating your story, and good luck finding a day job.

and don't give up on a plan b for your site. think.......

richardw• 17 years ago

Thank you for the writeup - definitely an eye-opener.

Options:

1) Re-enable videos to be uploaded to your own site. Put ads on those. You have enough of a name that you should get at least a trickle of videos which you can use for public (free) parts of the site. Maybe video contributors get free access - X months per video.

2) Get other non-video content up there. Forums, user-submitted articles etc. Change the balance of Youtube vs. non-Youtube content.

teye• 17 years ago

I'm sure totlol.com is a great site and all, but I seriously doubt you're single-handedly responsible for a change to the YouTube TOS.

quellhorst• 17 years ago

This guy didn't get banned by Google, but he couldn't make enough money with his startup so he had to get a real job. To save his ego, he blames Google and their TOS.

operon• 17 years ago

Comments like this deserves a downvote

martian• 17 years ago

While I understand that the YouTube integration is really nice, rolling your own encoding and video-serving is not out of the question. There are a number of libraries for some popular languages that will help automate the process (with ffmpeg) and cover up the messy details if you need. The cheap FLVplayer is easily skinned to match your site, etc. And Amazon's S3 storage is almost free.

gscott• 17 years ago

Possibly some sort of Yahoo integration instead, not as popular but good enough.

PanMan• 17 years ago

While S3 storage is fairly cheap, bandwidth still isn't. I did some math for a video clip I'm working on. And 1.000.000 views (a lot, but not unfeasible for a popular music vid. Some rank 5+ million) still costs a few thousand $... Hard to make that back on ads.

mey• 17 years ago

Like building a business model on top of Twitter or Facebook, you are at the whim of another entity, for your financial security, and not for something easily replaceable, but you actual audience and/or content. Your options are either to diversify or develop actual contractual agreements with the company in question so you can't be just tossed out with a change of the terms of service.

nice1• 17 years ago

Regardless of everything else, the timeline Ron describes makes pretty sad reading. What amazes me always is that sleazy people seem to think the truth will never come out.

stephen• 17 years ago

I like your idea. But why not go after real content? Talk to Time Warner/Disney/somebody like that.

Personally, I'd pay to let my kids watch a few minutes of on-demand cartoons every day in a walled garden. Can't believe Disney/etc. hasn't done this yet. Their existing iphone apps/web sites for kids are a joke.

(They have a few "watch a cartoon now" type things, but its like a bad TV station instead of a youtube-like experience.)

sireat• 17 years ago

I am surprised another similar site hasn't been mentioned so far: kideos.com (our kids love it), similar concept.

Tthe difference is, it doesn't have as much user participation(screening is done mostly/fully by site owners). I do wonder how they are faring under this threat/opportunity.

TotlolRon3• 17 years ago

"A spokesperson for YouTube said he could not comment on the complaint, primarily because the relevant YouTube employees and lawyers are off for the holidays."

(http://newteevee.com/2009/12/29/totlol-creator-learns-the-ha...)

elblanco• 17 years ago

Some follow-up http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/29/totlol-youtube/

tybris• 17 years ago

At least with Seattle IT you know when you're going to get screwed. With San Francisco IT it always comes unexpected.

The story of my startup (and the Google/YouTube API trap)

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