DailyTech - YouTube Rival Coming from News Corp. and NBC

Submit News

Internet YouTube Rival Coming from News Corp. and NBC
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - March 22, 2007 7:22 PM

E-mail

del.icio.us

22 comment(s) - last by kyleb2112.. on Mar 26 at 1:17 AM

AOL, Microsoft, MySpace, Yahoo and join in to help NBC and News Corp.

YouTube's position as the Internet's most popular destination for watching videos is one of many risks and rewards. While being very popular, the video hosting website is currently facing a number of legal bouts from several media houses including Viacom, which threw a massive $1 billion copyright infringement suit at YouTube last week. YouTube's parent company Google said, however, that it is merely a hosting company, and that laws within the DMCA allow it to continue to serve its users without fault.

Today, YouTube will be facing a new foe in the form of NBC and News Corp. The two media giants have decided to join forces and plan the launch of a new online video website that will host users uploads as well as have TV shows and movies -- all for free. NBC will host popular TV shows on the new site while New Corp.'s Fox will host popular movies.

The biggest part of the NBC and News Corp. cooperation is that both companies have also partnered up with some of Google's biggest competitors -- AOL, Microsoft, MySpace and Yahoo. Together, content from NBC and News Corp. will be distributed through the above four companies. "This is a game changer for Internet video," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp. Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC expressed a similar outlook on the partnership. "Anyone who believes in the value of ubiquitous distribution will find this announcement incredibly exciting," said Zucker. According to the release:

At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search.

With a total of 65 million possible viewers on MySpace online, NBC and News Corp. hope to be making a big impact on the online video industry. It is clear that YouTube poses a significant threat to traditional TV and video media, and popularity is growing on a daily basis.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

FINALLY!

By Cuddlez on 3/22/2007 7:53:36 PM , Rating: 2

Rather than whining, and throwing around stupid lawsuits the media finally decides to fight fire with fire. I for one am looking forward to this.

RE: FINALLY!

By KaiserCSS on 3/22/2007 8:26:19 PM , Rating: 3

Competition is usually healthy, since it spurs advancements and whatnot to create a higher quality output in order to attract "customers". However, that is quite debatable in the online community, since goodness knows the Internet is not exactly the same as a market economy. If this new service becomes large and popular enough and steals a good deal of the YouTube regulars, perhaps they will start charging fees.

Also, MySpace and AOL working together = the end of the Internet as we know it.

May God have mercy on our souls.

Parent

RE: FINALLY!

By GrandMareg on 3/22/2007 8:51:59 PM , Rating: 3

The only people who will actually use this are the emo kids who already have MySpace accounts.

They're filtering out the trash from youtube, veoh, and dailymotion so we don't even have to browse through it.

Either way I'll still watch the shows where i want, be it gootube, dailymotion, or veoh.

Parent

RE: FINALLY!

By jtesoro on 3/23/2007 1:19:49 AM , Rating: 2

It's not unthinkable that this partnership will start charging fees sometime in the future. However, if people see this as unacceptable, they will move on to other sites.

Using the AOL example, they used to be king of the hill. But once people got dis-satisfied, they got up and left (albeit with some pain). This happened even though most had serious AOL "roots" in the form of email addresses that they didn't want to lose.

Bottom line, I think competition and the market economy is still alive and well in the Internet.

Parent

RE: FINALLY!

By Axbattler on 3/25/2007 10:22:08 PM , Rating: 2

Thing about the internet, is it only takes seconds to move from one site to another. A lil longer if you take your content with you, and even longer if you wait for others to move with you. But I say that if they are able to gain YouTube users, then they can lose them too.

Plus, free is good, but if people are willing to pay for content, so be it. At the moment, I'd say that YouTube will have a more attractive scheme to contributors if their plans go through (www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5888). So it may come down to whether people will pay for NBC's exclusive content, or stick to YouTube content online and catch NBC shows on TV.

Parent

Seriously?

By outsider on 3/23/2007 2:21:58 AM , Rating: 2

What a nice joint-venture. The only one missing was Google. Then the article could read "The internet joins forces to fight YouTube."

RE: Seriously?

By Sunbird on 3/23/2007 4:22:49 AM , Rating: 2

Since Google has bought and now owns YouTube, that would just not be possible...

Parent

RE: Seriously?

By Griswold on 3/23/2007 5:00:45 AM , Rating: 3

Some people think Google is the internet.

Parent

sure

By sprockkets on 3/22/2007 11:41:52 PM , Rating: 2

Movies for free? Yeah right, why not then host music?

RE: sure

By MrBungle123 on 3/23/2007 11:43:32 AM , Rating: 2

They'll get away with it until the RIAA figures out that movies have music in them, then they will go around suing everyone that watches movies off this new service.

Parent

RE: sure

By Scabies on 3/23/2007 11:51:04 AM , Rating: 2

oohhh and so when everyone installs the software AOL will provide that will be required for playback (you know they will, or theyll pull in Viewpoint or something and tack on Weatherbug) the RIAA will have easy access into your computer when they attack this service. Brilliant!

Parent

sounds to good to be true

By Macuser89 on 3/23/2007 12:56:25 AM , Rating: 2

I just hope that they don't make you install some BS on your computer to view the videos and movies. That would be a deal breaker for me, as they would love to infest my computer with ads. This is a great time for this though.

RE: sounds to good to be true

By jtesoro on 3/23/2007 1:24:04 AM , Rating: 2

Agreed. In concept this thing is great. Now let's hope they don't screw it up in execution.

Parent

RE: sounds to good to be true

By MikeO on 3/23/2007 5:57:26 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Now let's hope they don't screw it up in execution.

First time for everything... I'm not holding my breath tho.

Parent

What ...No NAME for It!

By security on 3/23/2007 3:49:52 AM , Rating: 2

How can you launch such a high profile tech and not have a predetermined name for it???

RE: What ...No NAME for It!

By MADAOO7 on 3/23/2007 3:01:25 PM , Rating: 2

Seeing that Google owns YouTube and Google spent $900 Million on MySpace for advertisements....google must be pissed at Myspace for even thinking of making a competitor to YouTube.

Parent

mypubtj

By Troy Olsen on 3/22/2007 11:59:19 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe this site has it? Does not come from Hollywood or gootube!

When?

By Zarsky on 3/23/2007 3:10:56 AM , Rating: 2

This article doesn't mention anything about when this site will launch.
I'm waiting forward to this since they removed all the simpsons from dailymotion.