Earlier this month, it was rumored that Google was in talks to buy Brightcove — the once “we-do-it-all” video platform, now forced (by YouTube) cut back and specialize in a a video asset management solution and cheap(er) CDN bandwidth for publishers.

I didn’t really get the rumored deal at first — I thought a premium, video asset management solution was the sort of unscalable, sales-heavy business Google would try to avoid — but Peter Kafka’s recent report on the YouTube/Warner Music Group deal re-openned the issue for me.

In his report, Peter notes:

Unlike Vevo, Warner and YouTube won’t be creating a separate site for Warner videos, and Warner won’t be creating a separate company dedicated to its videos. Instead, YouTube will help Warner create a “premium advertising platform” for its videos within YouTube.

Immediately upon reading this I thought back to Brightcove. A backend solution for Warner, while not rocket-science, would be rather distracting for the main YouTube team, and outside the expertise of Google’s AdWords/Sense teams, which are more focused on direct-to-advertiser/publisher solutions — not something built for a sales force.

For the YouTube/Warner deal to work, however, YouTube needs a solution Warner can stick a sales force on, and they need to do it fast.

I know I’m adding speculation to speculation, but I wonder if Brightcove would make a good solution for Google in that role. Sure the $80 million a year in revenue would be good for YouTube’s unit, and it could further solidify YouTube in the online video market, but what if — at the end of the day — it was just a really good ad management solution.

I don’t know the answer. Do you?

Stuff we use daily:

• Google Apps: Gmail (for all company email and built-in video chat)
• Google Apps: Docs (for simple, collaborative modeling of traffic, stats, etc)
• Google Apps: Sites (for API documentation and feature specs)
• Basecamp (for task management and communication around implementation)
• Beanstalk (for Subversion)
• Lighthouse (for bug tracking)

Apps we’re playing around with:

• ooVoo (Google’s video chat is great for 1-to-1 communication, but I love having multiple people on video chat, but not huddled around the same webcam. ooVoo let’s us stay at our desks and all take part in a larger conversation).
• Procaster by Livestream (We’ve started using Livestream for usability testing. With their Procaster tool, you can stream both a webcam and screencast of what the user is doing. This allows you to watch the user and their movements around you application. It’s not what Livestream intended, but we love it.)

So that’s the stack of online tools we use. Right now it runs us under $100 a month for everthing listed, which is pretty amazing when you think about everything we don’t have to worry about.

He says nearly everything I’d say. I’ll only add that:

1. My “Twitter + payments” thesis would flourish at Google, and help Google Checkout compete against Paypal.

2. Google’s biggest asset is searching all of the history of the web; their achillies heel in search (if they have one) is most likely the “real time” element that Twitter provides and is land-grabbing right now.

3. I don’t think Twitter would sell for only $1 billion. After a first quarter of 2009 as good as theirs, they are going to over value themselves, and if $1 billion makes sense to Henry — even though they’ve more than tripled in size after receiving an offer half the size — then their strike point in this deal is likely much closer to $2 billion.

Now, as Henry Blodget put it, this in no way means a certain antitrust movement against Big Rainbow (Google):

Hard to view this as anything but negative for Google.  A strident government attack on the company seems unlikely (and ill-advised), but Google’s future moves will almost certainly be more scrutinized and restricted than they have been to date.  That’s not good for shareholders.

However, I wonder if we as startupers — rather than shareholders — should encourage or discourage such an action.

In the past, of course, startupers and VCs have rushed to Google’s defense (see my Google Antitrust articles from 2007). Not only has Google maintained relatively good Karma among the early stage community (awesome APIs will do that), but also Google has been seen as an attractive exit option for startups ever since they went public in 2004 and began a buying spree.

However, an analysis of this list of Google acquisitions (graphed below) reveals a suppressed appetite in Mountain View, leading me to wonder if keeping Google as a monolith is such a great thing for startups and VCs, who — in a SOX environment — increasingly rely on acquisitions as a way to realize the value of their company or investment.

If Google’s status as a monopoly were taken on by the Justice Department (and if the DoJ prevailed), Google would likely split itself into several smaller companies, leaving the world with several powerful, cash-rich micro-Googles, in turn leaving with world with that many more exit or business development opportunies for startups.

On the flipside, if Google isn’t split up, its obvious that Google’s appetite for acquisitons will continue to slow, if not halt altogether, in fear of inducing futher scrutiny from the DoJ.

So, disregarding any political beliefs, corporate loyalties or grudges, I wonder: Should those of us in the startup market hope for a Google shakedown? Would an antitrust suit do us well?

The answer may be surprising.

Also, I wanted to point out this article by David Recordon, who pointed out the connection between App Engine and Facebook’s Platform via Twitter from the unveiling event, and then posted about it around the same time my article was first posted here yesterday.

I think David is spot on, and I thank him for making me look less crazy.

Supporting both David and me in our assertions is the debacle around Google’s Campfire look-alike called HuddleChat.

Clearly, Google will be toe-ing the same line Facebook does when it comes to apps running on its platform. Think about it: if Facebook came out with its own “SuperWall” or “TopFriends” app, the developer community would be equally up in arms about, justly or not.

So, still today, I see App Engine as Facebook Platform 3 or 4.0, and not much to do with EC2.