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NBC, News Corp Join to Create YouTube Clone

Posted by Zonk on from the we're-taking-our-ball-and-going-home dept.

Brett writes "It's official: NBC Universal and News Corp have announced their plans to create a video sharing site of their own. The joint venture will features both TV and movie shows in full length, including episodes of '24,' 'My Name is Earl,' and movies like 'Borat.' The plan is to also syndicate content on other portals like MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo! It's unclear how YouTube's previous deal with NBC relates to this, but it's clear that the major players are now shunning YouTube."

1 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. YES, THEY DO :) by pavon · · Score: 2, Informative

    PEOPLE DON'T SIT AT THE COMPUTER TO WATCH HALF-HOUR SHOWS.
    Full-length shows constantly being posted to YouTube, and have a large number of visitors. The shows made available at the networks website have also had a very large number of visitors despite technical difficulties. People don't prefer to watch 40 minute or even 20 minute shows on their computer, but if they missed an episode of $FAVORITE_SHOW, being able to catch it online is the next best thing (until IP-TV becomes mainstream).

    As slashdoters have been saying for years, not making your content available in a convenient form is the best way to guarantee it will be pirated. This is not trying to replace YouTube, it is trying to curb the illegitimate uses of it, by providing an alternative that brings in some revenue.

    -Can't store content for future use.
    -Windows/Explorer ONLY
    -Advertising
    -Crappy format
    We'll see how well they do, but I wouldn't write it off that quickly. None of the people that I have talked to really care about the ads that are in the shows at nbc.com and abc.com (when the player works properly) - they know the company has to make money, and are happy that the ads are shorter than on TV. In fact they prefer the short ads over the low quality of the YouTube videos. They don't care about being able to download it to their computer, just watching the episode they missed. If it truely is Explorer/Windows only than that would suck, but I don't see where you are getting that from. The fact that they are allowing embedding would strongly suggest that it is going to be flash-based, as it would give them more control with regards to showing ads.

    I think this could be very successful at achieving it's goals - which is not to be YouTube killer.