YouTube vs. uTube – $1,000 Per Day Name Similarity
Written by Pablo Palatnik on May 17, 2007
It comes down to monetizing on opportunity. If you want to talk money, uTube came out on top leveraging the largest video distribution brand, YouTube. The buzz online is that uTube is currently generating about $1,000 per day through their implemented ringtone search engine, which means $360,000 per year! The websites traffic rose from about 1,500 visitors to 2 million visits per month reports Muhammad Saleem over at ProNet.
YouTube is not losing any sleep over this news on uTube, but both are still in litigation with a lawsuit involving the brand & loss of business on Utube’s part. Why complain? The brand still maintains it’s image to it’s core clients (online) and manages to cash in on a name similarity. If anyone is losing, it’s YouTube. The loss comes from YouTube’s end on two main reasons:
1-Loss of Traffic- Two million lost visitors per month must be very troubling news to YouTube. It is said that the estimation of two million visitors has risen. While uTube makes $1k + per day on ringtones, YouTube’s loss of revenue from two million visits can far exceed the $1k per day mark.
2-Brand Reputation & Management- Believe it or not, not everyone has seen what YouTube looks like and I would like to see its unique visits per month. When going to uTube thinking you’re going to YouTube must be very disappointing for a new user seeing what the buzz is all about for the first time. YouTube, the largest online video distribution site, worth billions, must protect at all cost its brand.
Definition of Trademark by US Government Agency:
•A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.
•A service mark is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. Throughout this booklet, the terms “trademark” and “mark” refer to both trademarks and service marks.
File Trademark Date For YouTube: January 30, 2006
File Trademark Date For uTube: October 18, 2006
I’m no lawyer, but if a brand is registered and trademarked before the other one causing consumer confusion, it is automatically at fault. YouTube has not yet trademarked its logo (or atleast theres no public record of it yet), as you see no TM on it, only on thier motto, “Broadcast Yourself.” That must be the reason YouPorn has the same logo…no trademark issues. Someone needs better brand reputation & management?
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5 Responses to “YouTube vs. uTube – $1,000 Per Day Name Similarity”
wow, thats impressive. I wonder if youtube has asked to buy utube? im sure thats what they are waiting around for, utube that is.
By Geri Mayer on May 17, 2007
Hey,
I saw a piece on this a while back … back before uTube had the advertisements on their landing page.
At that time, uTube was complaining about the bandwidth costs of having all the extra traffic hitting their site.
It seems reasonable to me that uTube would put an advertisement on their landing page to recoup the expense of the misdirrected traffic.
You may notice that the ad only appears on the landing page and no other pages @ uTube.
By Scott on Jun 12, 2007
I think uTube did a great thing from profiting from the name similarity, no doubt. My problem is with the whole lawsuit issue. If I owned uTube, I’d just keep capitalizing on the traffic..or sell it as well before the traffic dies.
By Pablo Palatnik on Jun 12, 2007
Why didn’t YouTube grab the domain utube when they got the youtube domain. Sounds silly to not grab the domain and because someone else does; start talking about the “loss” coming from it. How in the world would YouTube even know how much it’s losing when it never owned the domain? Did it only think about it after the fact? Why only when someone else starts making money do they care? GROW UP YOU GREEDY KIDS. Show us why YouTube is so much better than utube!! Don’t be a kid and try to sue when someone else picks up a domain that “sounds” like yours. What a bunch or overpaid crybabies.
By Neosin on Jun 13, 2007
has anyone been to utube.com? They actually sell tubing?
By sammy on Jun 13, 2007