MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

In Light of Via­com Inc.‘s suit against Google for unau­tho­rized use of its videos on YouTube. Fox par­ent News Corp. and Media Giant NBC Uni­ver­sal announced this thurs­day that they will be launch­ing a free online video site this sum­mer, fea­tur­ing tele­vi­sion shows and full-length movies.

Ever won­der what was YouTube’s secret to success? Studies have shown that peo­ple are choos­ing the inter­net as they’re source of enter­tain­ment over dvd’s or going to the cin­ema. That would explain Viacom’s suit against Google.

How­ever YouTube’s suc­cess has left many media com­pa­nies ques­tion­ing their age old method and some com­pa­nies are now real­iz­ing the need to change. Two such com­pa­nies are NBC and Fox who are now aim­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on dig­i­tal audio and video con­tent just like YouTube and iTunes.

The only dif­fer­ence is that these com­pa­nies actu­ally own most of the video and audio con­tent that con­sumers demand so replac­ing them to a dig­i­tal form should be a piece of cake for them.

Inter­est­ingly enough NBC and Fox won’t be alone in their plan for a new web­site that would fea­ture free TV shows and movies to be shown on major por­tals whilst being sup­ported by ads. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL will also be act­ing as dis­trib­u­tors of the enter­tain­ment on their Web sites.

New­corp CEO Peter Chernin had this to say:

“This is a game changer for Inter­net video”

“We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Inter­net audi­ence at launch. And for the first time, con­sumers will get what they want — pro­fes­sion­ally pro­duced video deliv­ered on the sites where they live”

Is YouTube’s exis­tence under threat?

With strict copy­writ­ing laws and these com­pa­nies hav­ing access to legal dis­tri­b­u­tion of video and audio con­tent on the web  it looks like YouTube’s only hope lies in its unique niche in user-generated content.

Accord­ing to James McQuivey of For­rester Research:

“It’s not actu­ally going to take away from YouTube because it’s as much about the social expe­ri­ence as the video. So YouTube is going to be fine,”

Yes, YouTube may still have a fight­ing chance with its tools for users to share pro­fes­sion­ally pro­duced and home­made mate­r­ial, but will that alone be enough to please con­sumers or will Google even­tu­ally decide to have YouTube join in with the hand(s) that feeds it…

Pali Capital’s Richard Green­field had this to say on YouTube’s fate:

“It’s still not clear how user-generated con­tent is going to fit in, and it’s still not clear that all of these com­pa­nies won’t do a deal with Google over time,”

Is this a plot by media com­pa­nies to over­throw YouTube?

NBC and News Corp. claim they are also look­ing to find new part­ner­ships which include Via­com and CBS Corp.

Via­com said it wel­comed the new ven­ture as a vehi­cle for spread­ing enter­tain­ment online while pro­tect­ing copy­right holders.

CBS said it would con­tinue to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­ity of work­ing with the ven­ture, among other ini­tia­tives.

A new YouTube in the Making…

Media com­pany execs say this new YouTube will allow con­tent to be posted on the site as well as allow­ing part­ners to fea­ture videos on their indi­vid­ual Web sites.

There is also plans for a new Inter­net media player, which will be embed­ded on part­ner sites and carry brand­ing of both. Plus the web­site will also allow users to edit — or “mashup” — some video, how­ever it won’t have a com­po­nent for upload­ing home-made videos.

My Take: I thought this piece of break­ing news would be an inter­est­ing piece to share with read­ers in light of how Inter­net Mar­keters (includ­ing us) are now embrac­ing YouTube as another way to improve site con­ver­sions

Check out the news arti­cle here»

What’s Your Take? Share Your Thoughts

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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