Original Content Coming To YouTube?

itwbennett writes "Rumors of original, professionally-produced content channels coming to YouTube are heating up. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on it, invoking pro skateboarder Tony Hawk as one of the star attractions. Now The Hollywood Reporter is saying the channels may be launched early next year, with an official announcement coming later this month. 'Originally the story was that YouTube was going to invest $100 million in this content, but now that number has been bumped up to $150 million,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Does that sound like a lot? Consider Netflix is rumored to be spending $100 million on House of Cards, a single original series that the company is backing. YouTube is said to be delivering 24 channels of original content.'"

Comments

Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[dreadlord76]

nuf said

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[ackthpt]

nuf said

I feel for ya, but you're more likely to see the Slashdot Channel first.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially since there's an ad on the main page counting down to some interview or another for "SlashTV" in 7 days.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh... It always sounds like a good idea to bring a really great series like "Firefly" (Or "Arrested Development" - which is why I am not as excited as I ought to be about it actually coming back) back... But when it is brought back it's never quite the same and is almost always disappointing.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it is usually brought back by a different group of people who just bought the rights. If you can't get a huge chuck of both the creatives and the cast it's almost always a flop. On the other hand if you get those folks or if you "reimagine" it in a really well done way alla BSG then sometimes there is gold in them there hills.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[bill_mcgonigle]

These guys think it's a viable product for Netflix.

Apparently 'cult' now means 'profitable in the long-tail'.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[bryan1945]

I'd love this, too, if the original team came back. Especially Whedon and the writing crew. Unfortunately, Shepherd is dead. :(
'Castle' seems to be doing well, so don't know if you could get Fillion back any time soon.
Might be best just to leave it be. Would be a shame if a revival tarnished the show.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Trax3001BBS]

I just found FireFly, watching it now in fact,"War Stories"
- always something playing in the background.

Great stories, too bad there's just 14 and a movie.

Seeing Morena Baccarin (StarGate) and Jewel Staite (Stargate: Atlantis)
when they were younger, is also a kick.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[morari]

Fuck that, I want Twin Peaks.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[EdIII]

There is no way a revival could tarnish that show, if all the original writers and cast come back.

Of course, you would need to completely ignore the movie entirely, or just accept that the characters magically came back to life. Shepherd is dead, but remember that Wash died too. Wash really helped bring some comedy to the show.

All of the characters in that show have gone in to do pretty well in other TV shows and movies, so I think they could only be better as actors. It's only been 10 years, so everybody pretty much looks the same. At least the last time I saw them in anything.

Unless there is a really serious commitment with money behind it, the production value was fantastic, it will fail... again.

Best probably to leave this one alone in the past. You know ... so there is no "Fat Elvis" deal with it.

So many shows are like that. Faulty Towers, Space 2.0, etc. All wonderful shows that died before their time.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, you would need to completely ignore the movie entirely, or just accept that the characters magically came back to life.

Or have the new series take place between the end of Season 1 and the movie.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry David did a reallly superb job with Curb Your Enthusiasm, even brought back the Seinfeld crew for an ep or two.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Lockyy]

FIllion has already said he'd drop everything to do it. The serenity movie wrapped everything up extremely fast. SPOILERSSPOILERSPOILERS But I think it'd be damn interesting if it followed a resurgence of the brown-coat movement within the universe. I wish there was some way of retconning Book and Wash dieing though without just completely ignoring the movie...

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

A reedit of TP would be most welcome. I've no idea what went wrong in the second season, but it became pure garbage for some reason. More soap than the wonderful world of TP.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

firefly sucked. the movie tanked. give it up already.

maybe people just don't want to watch a smarmy self-righteous pirate, a smarmy self-righteous whore, and a bunch of other idiots run around causing trouble.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's Firefly? Is it something you old-timers used to watch last year?

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about that. IF YouTube sticks to its guns and has average amounts of advertising like it is doing now and the channels are virtually free. They have an excellent delivery method for shows which might not have worked in the traditional cable market but will work well using an internet streaming model. I am thinking of shows like Moonlight, Firefly. Owning the broadcasting rights worldwide and having that size of available audience is a TV networks wet dream I can assure you. What Google needs to be careful about is the networks getting all pissy and going all anti competition on their ass.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[morari]

It's my understanding that David Lynch was forced to wrap up Laura Palmer's death, and left the show because of it. The majority of the second season was largely shit. If for no other reason than the focus on Donna and James' soap opera exploits. Lynch had returned to wrap up the second season, however. He once more made it interesting with the introduction of the White Lodge. Sadly, the show was cancelled on one helluva cliffhanger. It's unfortunate that Lynch decided to retread the Palmer case in the film, as opposed to wrapping up the show's loose threads.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[mattack2]

Family Guy being one of the ones not being disappointing.

I still think a Trek show could do well on something like this. A NEW Trek show is I think the only show that I'd pay close to the existing rates the various PPV providers (internet based, not cable based -- the cable based ones are even more ridiculously priced) cost.

Re:Can we PLEASE get Firefly back?

[bryan1945]

And how the FUCK did I forget to mention Wash dying in Serenity?!?!?!!?!?

Though the AC's idea of sticking in the new series between the original and Serenity is a good idea. There is no real timeline connection between the 2, so it could run as long as it wanted to.

No original content?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean there's currently no original content on YouTube? That means they are stealing 48hrs of video per minute! And they said they weren't evil!

Re:No original content?

[nospam007]

"You mean there's currently no original content on YouTube?"

There are umpteen million original content cat videos when I last checked.

Re:No original content?

[wvmarle]

What they're of course meaning is "commercial content made specifically for release on YouTube", like direct-to-video/DVD movies. But I don't think that needs explaining.

Yet my first reaction to that was "oh, isn't that there, yet?". Like free-to-air TV, it can be a platform to reach a large non-paying audience for content that comes with advertising, or is sponsored or whatever. There must be some kind of business model possible to make money off videos posted directly on YouTube. Without YouTube (Google) themselves investing in it directly.

Re:No original content?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it isn't made by big corporations, it doesn't count. Sure there is lots of "stuff" by hobbyists, small companies or - even worse - people who do stuff for free. But they're all just pirates, communists, socialists and terrorists.

Re:No original content?

[Lennie]

Actually quite a few people make their living on YouTube. For some it is their only job. Many of them life in L.A.

Just look up YouTube Partner program. These are people who get a large cut from the ad revenue of the ads on the videos they produce.

Obviously thse are people who get millions of views and produce new videos atleast 2 times a week.

Re:No original content?

[adisakp]

Last I heard, Warner Brothers is a pretty big company: Mortal Kombat: Legacy

How many will be about cats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it really matter if they have 24 channels of original content when 23 of them are about cats acting silly?

Re:How many will be about cats?

[mcavic]

It says professionally produced original content.

Re:How many will be about cats?

[todrules]

So 23 hours of reality shows then?

Re:How many will be about cats?

[kelemvor4]

It says professionally produced original content.

You read the summary (or even the article)? I am pretty sure that's a no-no around here.
1. Misinterpret headline.
2. Post rant.
This is how it's normally done.

Re:How many will be about cats?

[mcavic]

Yeah, pretty much. Or the lame stuff that Amazon Theatre put out a while back.

Re:How many will be about cats?

[mcavic]

Yeah, my bad. I'm still trying to adjust to life as a Slashdot user.

USA only? WebM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they launching yet another USA-only service or will they realize the potential market in all the other countries is much greater than the USA alone?

Will they use these new channels to try and push WebM adoption on their users or will they use the industry-standard H.264? Will Flash be required, no matter which CODEC is used?

Re:USA only? WebM?

[hedwards]

I'm not aware of any videos being WebM only, there are plenty of H.264 only videos, but all the videos I've seen that offer WebM are also available in H.264 and Flash varieties.

Re:USA only? WebM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably Flash so that ads work...

Re:USA only? WebM?

[EdIII]

Are they launching yet another USA-only service or will they realize the potential market in all the other countries is much greater than the USA alone?

Will they use these new channels to try and push WebM adoption on their users or will they use the industry-standard H.264? Will Flash be required, no matter which CODEC is used?

I don't know about WebM, but their service will not be USA-only. It's YouTube owned content. The vast majority of the reasons why US content is not available world wide, or at the same time, has to do with shortsighted retarded fuckfaced retarded dipshit Entertainment Executives. I'll tell you how I really feel later :)

If it does come out, don't worry, you will be able to see it everywhere except Pakistan. Pakistan won't be YouTube's fault either.

Self-publication

[internerdj]

Interesting, a few articles down it says Amazon is chasing writers. I'm glad to get the old greedy distribution systems out of the way, but how long before these become our new content hoarding overlords?

Re:Self-publication

[gman003]

I don't think it will be as bad. Look, for example, at an industry that's already moving quickly to all-digital distribution: PC video games.

There is, currently, one clear winner as far as platforms go: Steam. However, that has not stopped others (Direct2Drive, Desura, GameTap, GOG, Impulse, Origin) from existing and being profitable.

Most crucially, however, many games are available on multiple. For one example, the indie game "VVVVVV" (yes, that's a real title) is available on Steam, Desura, Direct2Drive and Impulse. The big-name "Crysis" can be found on Origin, Impulse and Steam. The exceptions tend to be cases of the developer and the publisher being one and the same (see: Battlefield 3).

It would seem that, for whatever reason, when an industry moves online, it tends to lose retailer exclusivity. I won't speculate as to why, but it definitely seems to be the case, at least from that one data point.

Re:Self-publication

[wvmarle]

It would seem that, for whatever reason, when an industry moves online, it tends to lose retailer exclusivity. I won't speculate as to why, but it definitely seems to be the case, at least from that one data point.

I can give you some thought about that.

In a brick & mortar retailer shelf space is scarce. Premium shelf space (e.g. at eye level, next to the cash register) is even scarcer. Online there is no limit to shelf space, and premium shelf space (web site front page) can be rotated much easier so also in effect has a lot more of that. There is simply much less need for exclusive contracts between retailers and publishers. This will help a lot. The online market place being much newer and much more in development (and not fully grown yet) will help too.

The above of course doesn't only account for software or games, but for many more products.

Re:Self-publication

[vakuona]

You are kidding right. Premium space on the web is even more valuable in my opinion. One of the reasons Apple does well, is they use their premium space damn well. They don't overlap releases of their core products so they can devote their premium space (their front page) to one product for months at a time.

Re:Self-publication

[wvmarle]

Apple is a very poor example as they always have just a few products in their current line-up. I just checked their home page - getting an enormous image of Jobs - and went to their store.

They have:

One phone. The iPhone. In one current model.

Two laptops: macbook pro and macbook air. Each with a few different models, but just a few.

The iPod - four different editions, a few models each.

The iPad2 (the original iPad is gone of course).

The Mac Pro, Mac Mini and iMac lines - each with just a few models in their line-up.

And the Apple TV.

That's pretty much their complete line-up. They keep their line-up small - so small it all fits on premium space. Besides that on the secondary shelves there are a bunch of accessories like earphones, microphones, protective covers, cables, and whatnot.

Now compare that to your average video shop where hundreds if not thousands of titles fight for attention, and where there are easily a dozen or two new releases every week that all want to be on the best shelf.

Re:Self-publication

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why there is so much resistance from content producers to netflix and other content distributors. They do not want to play in an environment where there is a distribution monopoly. I think we will have to go to each producer who each distribute their own content--if they can get their head out of their ass and figure it out. Comedy Central is a good example. The ads pay for the content, you can watch for free.

When comparing to Netflix...

[trunicated]

Remember, YouTube has been going with the quantity over quality argument since its inception. No reason why $150 million tossed at a number of different, smaller projects wouldn't be better for the audience that YouTube already pulls in. While I'm excited for Netflix new series, I'm interested to see what YouTube can pull together. There is a good chance that I will at least find some of the things they put on their site amusing, which isn't that hard to repeat a few hundred million times, and would lead to repayment via advertising revenue, whereas Netflix is going to need to either bump prices, increase subscriptions, or cut back other purchases.

Re:When comparing to Netflix...

[Wescotte]

They should buy up indy content. Sure, they can't buy content in nice big packages but they won't be forced content they don't want in these bundles like Netflix seems to suffer from. For every good show/fiilm they stream there is 100 more they got because it was in a bundle. The production value on non studio tv/film is getting really high really fast. This could be a great outlet for original content made outside the normal channels.

Maybe it's time to reward everyone who helped make YouTube what it is today by giving them an outlet for producing higher quality content that will never see the light of day on current TV/Film distribution methods.

Define professional?

[Daetrin]

As has already been pointed out (sarcastically) there's plenty of original content on YouTube already, so what's new about this is that it's professional? How exactly are they defining professional though?

I expect what they really mean is "content produced by people associated with Hollywood who have been paid upfront by a sponsor." Because to the extent of people creating content as a part time or full time job for which they get paid (either directly or through advertising, merchandising, or some other secondary deal) there's already quite a lot of professional content on YouTube.

Re:Define professional?

[sprins]

As has already been pointed out (sarcastically) there's plenty of original content on YouTube already, so what's new about this is that it's professional? How exactly are they defining professional though?

The article means original content BY YouTube themselve as I read it. YouTube is going to compete with the producers you talk about.

Re:Define professional?

[discord5]

How exactly are they defining professional though?

Don't you know? It's Tony Hawk PRO skater. This isn't just some average guy grinding on the curb, but a PRO. It says right so on the box. Hell, I'm getting my own channel, I'm a PROgrammer and I'm good at PROcastination. That's twice the professionalism of Mr Hawk.

I expect what they really mean is "content produced by people associated with Hollywood who have been paid upfront by a sponsor."

Well, there goes my ticket to riches... Oh well, I think I'll go flush some buffers for a while then. (See what you're missing out on ???)

Re:Define professional?

[jd]

They mean they're going to copy the Johnny Test story of three Snooze Tube success stories being put into a movie. It will end just as badly.

Re:Define professional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article means original content BY YouTube themselve as I read it. YouTube is going to compete with the producers you talk about.

Great. It's only a matter of time before all the music videos disappear and we have 24 hours a day of crap reality crap.

will this end or increase potential lawsuits?

[G3ckoG33k]

i guess it will increase the risk of potential lawsuits

as there may be more money and people involved

so, if your tv is on in the background, watch out

Not original content?

[rossdee]

I thought that YouTube was all about original content, albeit amateur videos of the type people used to send in to America's "Funniest" home videos, and people on scene at disasters etc.

And of course coverage of protests in undemocratic countries

Re:Not original content?

[MightyMartian]

And of course coverage of protests in undemocratic countries

Like Vermont?

Re:Not original content?

[ColdWetDog]

And of course coverage of protests in undemocratic countries

Like Vermont?

He said 'countries', not 'counties'.

Re:Not original content?

[Anonymous Coward]

"YouTube - it's not just for copyright infringement anymore!" :)

Re:Not original content?

[Anonymous Coward]

rossdee: WOOSH

Re:Not original content?

[bryan1945]

That's one part of YouTube. But then there are the thousands of clips from TV shows, movies, sports, and games. The only time I see "original" content on YouTube is when someone gives me a link to a funny clip of a dog dancing or something. The rest of the time I am looking for a specific sports play, a scene from a movie/TV show, etc. About the only time I browse is when I type in "funny monkey." (Hey, I find monkeys funny)

Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[RingDev]

Really, $100 million for a retred of yet another generic format TV program? Where the only thing that entertains anymore is putting extreme gore/fear/violence/sex into the content.

We have tons of small-house production studios that are doing amazing work on a shoe-string budget comparitively.

For $100M we could have a dozens full length Journey Quest seasons, or a bunch of new Dorkness Rising movies with even better production quality.

Instead it's "Hey look, Jack Bower disembowls a terrorist and feeds his intestins to a 5 year old to get him to admit that he hid his keys!"

-Rick

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[Zorque]

There's a pretty big audience gap between a show about some geeks doing stuff nobody cares about and famous people (admittedly still doing stuff nobody cares about).

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[gknoy]

Man, Jack's hard-core. I usually just offer the 5 year old a soda or something to tell me where they've hid my keys. Terrorist intestines seems a little overkill!

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[iluvcapra]

Really, $100 million for a retred of yet another generic format TV program?

Most of the money is going to Kevin Spacey merely to appear and have his name at the front of each episode. People are generally drawn to stars, that's where the value is. The "generic format" is just a substrate.

We have tons of small-house production studios that are doing amazing work on a shoe-string budget comparitively. (sic)

Red vs. Blue doesn't have the sort of audience reach they're looking for. Now I can't speak for the demographics of "Dorkness Rising," but...

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[Anonymous Coward]

Why so puritanical?

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[RingDev]

Red vs. Blue doesn't have the sort of audience reach they're looking for. Now I can't speak for the demographics of "Dorkness Rising," but...

I supose that no program has the audience reach they're looking for, until they advertise and push it.

I mean, LotR and the Hobbit shouldn't have any sort of audience reach either by that measure, but they get advertised and pushed to the point that the insignificant cult following that they enjoy is moot compared to the massive throngs of consumers who have been convinced that it's the greatest thing ever invented for the next 5 minutes.

Just saying, I'd much rather see them come up with 100 hours of a wide variety of content from small house producers than 3 hours of generic retred with the stars for the same cost.

-Rick

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[iluvcapra]

Really, $100 million for a retred of yet another generic format TV program?

If you look at it, $100 million would be a rather reasonable figure if you consider you're getting Spacey and Fincher-level talent -- for a standard 26 ep order that's two series at a little under $2 million an ep. The Sopranos, in 1999, cost about $2 million an ep, that's in line with what The Wire and other series were spending at the time. Terra Nova costs $4 million an ep and the pilot cost $20 million, amortized over the season.

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[iluvcapra]

I mean, LotR and the Hobbit shouldn't have any sort of audience reach either by that measure

And it continues to be a rather nichy thing, but:

* if you put a buncha million dollar battles on screen

* and Viggo Mortensen, and Magneto, and Steven Tyler's hot daughter, and Will Turner

* and bankrupt New Line Cinema marketing it.

...suddenly you've got something a lotta people wanna see. If people wanted to see LotR for the story then they could just get the Bakshi out of the library. But again, the story is a substrate.

Just saying, I'd much rather see them come up with 100 hours of a wide variety of content from small house producers than 3 hours of generic retred with the stars for the same cost

Variety is expensive and overrated. The vast majority of people just want to be entertained in the most conventional way possible, with faces they know and like, with maybe a little grit that lets them know somebody might be trying to challenge them. That's why it's "entertainment" and not "art."

Re:Or see what Journey Quest is doing with $60k

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the standard. After 8 seasons of Jack, I'm like, terrorists are a dime a dozen, too.

This story is not about Australia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore it should be replaced with a story about Australia.

Just what we need

[Krazy Kanuck]

More professionally created "reality" TV. I would rather spork my eyes out.

Existing original channels?

[Enderandrew]

YouTube already has tons of existing channels of original content. I'm particularly fond o:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec
http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHarto
http://www.youtube.com/user/EpicMealTime

The difference is that they do this on their own dime, and get money from YouTube after the fact with revenue sharing. I guess this new model would be YouTube sponsoring the production of video to begin with. But YouTube does actually have tons of original content for all kinds of tastes. But I wouldn't say any of it has the production values of what you see on major networks.

Re:Existing original channels?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But YouTube does actually have tons of original content for all kinds of tastes."

We'll see how long that lasts if they start paying money to put their own original content on there. All those normal users are just going to be distracting people away from the new stuff they're betting money on...

But I'm just cynical so hopefully it won't happen the way I expect it to.

Re:Existing original channels?

[Anonymous Coward]

And these

http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew
http://www.youtube.com/user/NurdRage
http://www.youtube.com/user/MysteryGuitarMan
http://www.youtube.com/user/FlippyCat

Re:Existing original channels?

[Anonymous Coward]

The major networks are going away, my friend. They are the buggy whip manufacturers. I canceled my Dish Network subscription. I now watch TV on my PC in my bedroom and surf with a wireless keyboard. I don't understand why I can't get new channels streamed live. I don't understand why the TV channels haven't figured how that streaming realtime over the internet is the future, but it is. One day, you'll look back and see. The networks will go the way of Tower Records.

Re:Existing original channels?

[Zerth]

What, you mean like traditional TV is distracting everyone from watching My Drunk Kitchen?

Funny, that doesn't seem to be happening.

HD

[Anonymous Coward]

So will the HD streams crawl along at 1500Kbps like the non-'original' content on YouTube?

Great probably more reality tv

[future assassin]

no fucking thanks Gimme so god damn good shows. WTF happened to shows like Seinfled, Third Rock From The Sun, Newsradio, Dark Skies, Star Trek spin offs, Space Above and Beyond,

Re:Great probably more reality tv

[bryan1945]

Seinfeld ratings were dropping (plus it was costing a ton per episode by the end)
Never watched 3rd Rock.
Newsradio was a shadow of itself after Hartman got killed (bitch!)
I remember watching Dark Skies, but have no idea what it was about now.
Star Trek just ran itself into the ground (a prequel series, really?). Give it 5-10 years and a new one should pop up, especially since the latest movie did well.
Space Above and Beyond was a great show. Great cast, nice plot. No one watched (and a crap ending). :(

I'll throw in Firefly & Sports Night with your list. But at least they ended well (Sports Night more so than Firefly, unless you add in Serenity).

Re:Great probably more reality tv

[badboy_tw2002]

Mad Men, Weeds, Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Breaking Bad, Archer, The Office, etc etc. And that's whats just on now. Go back over the past ten years and you've got the Sopranos, The Shield, Lost, Arrested Development, and of course BSG. Reality shows not withstanding, I'll take the past decade of TV over any other. Hell, they even brought Futurama, Family Guy, and now Arrested Dev. back. There will always be formula cop shows, canned laughter sitcoms, and (now) reality shows, but I find there's always 4-10 hours of great programming a week - shit that never would have made it on the air 15 years ago.

Re:Great probably more reality tv

[happylight]

Seinfeld ratings were dropping (plus it was costing a ton per episode by the end)

That's not what the Wikipedia article says. According to this, it was growing higher every season with the last season highest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld#Ratings_history

Re:Great probably more reality tv

[Phurge]

yes and what about phones that JUST MAKE CALLS!!

Re:Great probably more reality tv

[bryan1945]

Ah, OK. Must have messed that up with another show (Friends?). Maybe Seinfeld was due to salary demands, then?

That my explain

[Hsien-Ko]

Fred Figglehorn's speedily redacted channel.

House of Cards

[fiannaFailMan]

House of Cards, a single original series that the company is backing

Au contraire.

Re:House of Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

You may think that, I could not possibly comment :-)

Does anyone expect original?

[jader3rd]

Don't most people expect that most of YouTube is somebody posting others works? I know I do.

Matt Mulholland

[acoustix]

They need to pay Matt Mulholland for original material. He's funny and talented as all get out.

Need to Fix their TV Apps First

[Maltheus]

This gels nice with the fact that most new TVs include a youtube app, but I've yet to see one of those apps let me access my favorites or subscriptions, instead preferring to show me the same top 10 list (with the same people on it), month after month.

Not a huge fan of their mobile apps either since buffering seems to be a concept beyond youtube's comprehension. Get the software out of beta mode and then worry about the content.

Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

This isn't about "original" content, it's about professional Hollywood content. In other words: "Television".

And there hasn't been anything original on television since...um...well, let me get back to you on that.

This is about the amazing success of amateur-produced material on Youtube making the big corporations livid because it means they're not getting paid. They don't want you to draw a single breath that does not in some way take money out of your pocket and put it in theirs.

Do any of you really feel the need to "fix" Youtube by adding more "professionally produced Hollywood content"?

This is just another example of the corporate world being caught flat-footed by the Internet. It should remind us that if the Internet had been started by the corporate world, all it would be is cable television on your computer. Every single corporate incursion into the Internet makes it less of what people want and more of what the corporations want, which is an endless siphon of wealth from us to them.

Re:Original my ass

[iluvcapra]

This is just another example of the corporate world being caught flat-footed by the Internet.

If that were true, then Netflix would be dictating Kevin Spacey and David Fincher's price, not the other way around. Do you really believe executives at Columbia and 20th Century-Fox are being caught "flat-footed" by Lolcats, 40 minute reviews of Star Wars movies and time-lapse photography of flowers blooming on Vimeo?

Do any of you really feel the need to "fix" Youtube by adding more "professionally produced Hollywood content"?

The problem is you're thinking of Youtube as a content producer when it's really just a distribution medium. You'll still have the same people making movies that have always been making them, you just will be seeing it streaming on your Roku box instead of buying a DVD pressed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.

Youtube's problem is that they've now been stuck with the stigma of a bargain-bin distributor-- "Youtube" is a garbage brand, in the same way the $2 DVDs in the Walgreen's bin are garbage, and that takes more and more of a cut from ad revenues while the established distributors form themselves around Hulu and Apple and Netflix at the top of the value hierarchy. People actually pay money to watch movies on iTunes and Hulu, and now Youtube wants in on that action.

Re:Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

If that were true, then Netflix would be dictating Kevin Spacey and David Fincher's price,

Kevin Spacey still makes movies? I thought after the disastrous Bobby Darin biopic that he was marooned in voiceover-land, which by the way, he was very good as the voice of Gertie in Moon.

I guess he'll be "dictating" the terms Netflix will pay for The Father of Invention. No wonder Netflix was recently on death's door.

Actually, I think Spacey's been on a slow downward spiral since his best work, Hurlyburly.

"Youtube" is a garbage brand

Not that many "garbage brands" are household names. I guarantee, iluvcapra, that a lot more people visit Youtube than IMDB.

My guess is that Youtube is doing just fine. It's a real shame that no company is happy just making shitloads of money any more. They have to do everything, be everything, collect every cent. There is no notion of refining what they do to make it as good for consumers as it could possibly be. Instead they have to expand, to accelerate the rate of growth like a metastasizing tumor on a uranium miner's thyroid gland.

I guess I just hate the fact that the Internet has become a shopping mall on crack. No, a more apt comparison may be to a pay toilet. Everywhere you go on the Internet now, there's either a slot for you to swipe your credit card or a release form for allowing every conglomerate to put a scope up your ass.

I guess I'm trying to say that every day the Internet becomes more like cable television. Like most of the ecosystems on Earth, we should have been more careful with it.

Re:Original my ass

[iluvcapra]

If that were true, then Netflix would be dictating Kevin Spacey and David Fincher's price,

Kevin Spacey still makes movies? I thought after the disastrous Bobby Darin biopic that he was marooned in voiceover-land, which by the way, he was very good as the voice of Gertie in Moon.

I guess he'll be "dictating" the terms Netflix will pay for The Father of Invention.

You know, he didn't put a gun to their head. There's a lot of things he could be doing and a series for Netflix is actually something of a risk, particularly after "Bubble" and the established trend of programming on Crackle.com, FunnyOrDie and the whole motley crew.

How much is Kevin Spacey worth? It's sortof an interesting process, what happens is there are a bunch of companies called "foreign sales agents" that market scripts and movie stars to international film and television distributors, and they can tell you, to the dollar, exactly how much money a Japanese or Phillipine or Israeli film distributor will pay for a film starring Tom Hanks, or Zoe Saldana, or Kevin Spacey. Foreign distributors only need to know the film is starring the name, the genre of the film and the budget, and they will write a check on the spot for the right to distribute the film; they generally don't even read the script. That's why movie stars dictate their terms, because there are huge audiences of people that will just watch them, doesn't matter in what. If you're making an independent film and a star agrees to star in it, distributors will suddenly just hand you money, and any gap can be covered by a banker. In small projects, like "House of Cards" the star's presence decides if the show is made or not, period.

I guess I'm trying to say that every day the Internet becomes more like cable television. Like most of the ecosystems on Earth, we should have been more careful with it.

So you basically want the internet to become a nature preserve for mediocrity? Where nothing worth doing for money is possible because any business model where people pay is impractical? Internet reflects the needs and wants of its users, and what you're really saying is you don't like how people are using the internet, as if you know what's best for them, and what someone on the internet has the right to do.

I guess I could look at the world like you, and write off 90% of the Earth as morons and unworthy of the Internet, but that's sorta megalomaniacal.

Re:Original my ass

[TaoPhoenix]

"I guess I just hate the fact that the Internet has become a shopping mall on crack."

It's worse than that Jim, there's a thundering philosophical problem going on. We were careful with the net, we have the greatest window of (sorta) free world wide communication ever. Problem is, "what is communication". If you listened to a bunch of guys just chillin' on a Sunday over Pizza and Beer/Soda (depending on your age group), the level of conversation is ... on the order of LolDogs and Titties. Maybe some bitching about work. Then someone brings over a DVD of some show, and they all watch it and do MST3K to it.

So that's what shows up online. So the smart folks go searching out the better stuff.

Trouble is, now we have the Pros staging "bar fights" next to our "TED talks". The net did itself in by calling "lame" when 1-man ops produce stuff that isn't very good - because then it opens the gap for studios to intone "look! shiny!".

It's a really hard problem to solve.

Re:Original my ass

[GreatBunzinni]

. Do you really believe executives at Columbia and 20th Century-Fox are being caught "flat-footed" by Lolcats, 40 minute reviews of Star Wars movies and time-lapse photography of flowers blooming on Vimeo?

No, they were caught "flat-footed" by a distribution medium which has obsoleted the television medium. The only thing that nowadays TV still has that the internet doesn't is the industrialized content, but with the advent of sites such as http://www.southparkstudios.com/, http://www.thedailyshow.com/ and http://www.colbertnation.com/, not to mention the unauthorized distribution of tv series, it's quite obvious that TV is destined to go the way of the dodo.

Re:Original my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Doesn't this sort of take the You out of Youtube?

Re:Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

So you basically want the internet to become a nature preserve for mediocrity?

"Mediocrity"? You think handing it over to Hollywood keeps it from being mediocre? Wait, let me take this in. Kevin Spacey is going to keep YouTube from being mediocre? Excuse me for a second while I ponder that one. He couldn't even keep K-Pax from being mediocre, and he's going to save YouTube? And you may describe YouTube a lot of ways, but "mediocre" is not one most people will pick.

I guess I could look at the world like you, and write off 90% of the Earth as morons and unworthy of the Internet

No, iluvcapra, just the opposite. You want to hand the internet over to a very narrow few percent of the population, the professionals, because I guess you believe that there's just not enough commercial media available. There aren't enough strip malls, so we have to turn the Internet into the biggest one of all.

Yes, it would rather it be a "preserve". I would preserve it for human beings rather than corporations, if only to see what they can come up with when they can communicate and express themselves without Disney and Sony and other corporate conglomerates calling the shots. You seem to believe that we're all happier on the plantation, doing what the master tells us, spending all our money at the company store (Man, I'm mixing metaphors today, but stick with me). I would much rather have the inmates in charge of this one asylum than the corporate Nurse Ratched.

Anyway, isn't it called "YouTube" for a reason? Because YOU get to create the content, make the choices, not THEM.

Re:Original my ass

[iluvcapra]

You want to make it sound like Kevin Spacey is bad, but your real problem is with the system and that he's still a successful entertainer and you're still a moralistic aesthete. Are we supposed to ban Kevin Spacey and David Fincher from the Internet, or just ban them from charging money?

You know they aren't taking away the ability to self-publish on YouTube, it's all still there and will remain there. You just can't accept the fact that nobody wants to watch that stuff. Or maybe they want to watch it for 3 minutes and then they're done; the Internet excels at producing, and then quickly clearing, fads and flashes in the pan.

Regardless, I don't see how Netflix and Google weren't corporate dictators before they started packaging content, and suddenly became them afterward. All of the mediums for self-publication on the Internet are highly corporate and spy on, and advertise to, their viewers. There were ways of putting content on the internet before Youtube and Netflix, but none of them were practical.

Even the humblest, BitTorrent-distributed "Indie" projects still have fundraising mechanisms that tie intimately into social media to track down new audiences and suckers, er, backers. And for all that they're still terrible.

Re:Original my ass

[iluvcapra]

I don't see how three websites owned by Viacom are catching old media flat-footed. There's no doubt that television distibution will die, but it's not clear that that's going to fundamentally change the corporate players, the funding mechanism for new projects or the diversity of new projects.

The point is, if Trey Parker and Matt Stone switched to pure Internet distribution today, they'd be out of business in a week. If you want to create your own passion project nothing is stopping you, but if you make something that becomes popular and has a potential to attract a big audience, there are better alternatives than self-funding your shows on the web.

Re:Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

he's still a successful entertainer and you're still a moralistic aesthete

You don't know how right you are. As a professor of critical and literary theory, my job description very specifically included the term "moralistic aesthete".

Even the humblest, BitTorrent-distributed "Indie" projects still have fundraising mechanisms that tie intimately into social media to track down new audiences and suckers, er, backers. And for all that they're still terrible.

Yes, but almost all of them are better than "The Father of Invention".

Regardless, I don't see how Netflix and Google weren't corporate dictators before they started packaging content

But they didn't start life as corporate dictators. That's the point: the culture of the Internet changed, and not for the better. It has become cable television. The goal of the masters of the Internet today is for us to shut up and consume. The only time they want us to participate is to give them our personal information, which they will then sell like a Serbian pimp sells a kidnapped 14 year-old girl.

I'm not sure how old you are, but there was a time when there were greater hopes for the Internet than it turning into some high-priced corporate theme park/shopping mall. There was a time when the culture of the Internet was more interesting, more vital, than Edison Force.

Re:Original my ass

[tehcyder]

Kevin Spacey moved here to the UK to become director of the Old Vic, and has been doing rather more interesting work than the futile money-grabbing nonsense that goes on in Hollywood.

Re:Original my ass

[Raenex]

There's no problem to solve. Watch whatever you want. There's so much choice nowadays that I think people just like to bitch when others watch something they don't like.

Re:Original my ass

[adisakp]

This isn't about "original" content, it's about professional Hollywood content. In other words: "Television".

Warner Brothers and Netherrealm Studios produced an entire original series called Mortal Kombat: Legacy for YouTube.

The series did quite well and actually had a number of viewing hits that were fairly competitive with the top 5 cable TV shows at the time.

Disclaimer: I work for Netherrealm Studios which is owned by WB but nothing I say is directly representative of either company.

Re:Original my ass

[iluvcapra]

You don't know how right you are. As a professor of critical and literary theory, my job description very specifically included the term "moralistic aesthete".

Well, you know what they say about those that can, and those that cannot, perfesser.

Are you sure you didn't just write some Kurzweil-esque thesis in 1996 about democratization of media and the toppling of the established power structures, and now since it isn't happening you're taking it personally?

Also I think you have to distinguish between the goals of entertainment and art. Entertainment is shit people watch for money to feel better. Art isn't. Critical theory isn't an appropriate methodology for determining the value of entertainment -- sometimes it can, and god how it tries, but it's not necessary and it generally isn't productive. Transfomers 2 was a nightmare but it still made between six and eight-thousand man-years of a (tenured) professor's salary. I don't think that's the most important thing in the world, but it's certainly more important than any one man's opinion.

And I'm certainly not going to make anybody who walks around claiming to be an artist some kind of protected panda just because more successful people make shows that I think are poopypants. The internet has enough self-aggrandizing bozos and gurus and faux-visionaries telling me what kind of media is right to watch and what kind of software is right to run, and why you're a sellout this week and how you can escape that fate. They greatest trick Eric S. Raymond ever pulled was convincing you he wasn't a marketer and an archconservative, and that for most people a "cathedral" is just "any church that doesn't give me what I want."

But they didn't start life as corporate dictators.

This impression was unfounded. Netflix got rich by playing a rentier-- it didn't make any movies, it was a middleman, and when they started streaming on the internet they became the leaders in DRM. As long as Youtube was owned by Google it's been an aggressive information aggregator and ad seller. Youtube is a machine where eyeballs go in one end and little boxes, tagged with your gender and age, likes and dislikes, yearly income and zip code, for sale to ad buyers come out the other. Any positive feelings you had about these companies is the result of (apparently successful) branding and positioning.

I'm not sure how old you are, but there was a time when there were greater hopes for the Internet than it turning into some high-priced corporate theme park/shopping mall.

These hopes were mistaken; the internet is a buncha cables owned by Qwest, Verizon and Level 3, it is not Burning Man, it is not an ideology. Anything you could do on the Internet you can still do today, faster than ever. Youtube spending $100 million on original content won't make usenet stop working, If you don't wanna watch K-PAX, don't, it's really easy. The fact that Youtube is spending $100 million on content doesn't reflect any sort of spiritual truth about the internet, its just a reflection the values and demands of internet users.

Re:Original my ass

[PopeRatzo]

Well, you know what they say about those that can, and those that cannot, perfesser.

Oh yes. That's why in 2007, on the day after my 50th birthday, I quit academia to score films and teach tai chi.

Since then, I've written 11 film scores, two of them for independent features.

I say "film score" because I'm old. All but two of the "films" were shot on digital media, mostly using those Red Digital Cinema cameras. Of course, I'm not directly involved in shooting them, but I do like to hang around for the catering. I get a script and start composing and then my real work starts when I get what are anachronistically called "work prints" even though there's no longer any printing involved.

Just so you don't think I'm using my professional connection to the film (?) industry for self-aggrandizement, I should let you know that I got most of these jobs thanks to my low bid and my reputation as a musician in the 1980s, before I went to work as an academic.

Transfomers 2 was a nightmare but it still made between six and eight-thousand man-years of a (tenured) professor's salary. I don't think that's the most important thing in the world, but it's certainly more important than any one man's opinion.

(emphasis mine) You better hope you grow out of that opinion, son. It will cause you nothing but heartache. Because clearly you do in fact believe that it's "the most important thing in the world" or it would not have been worth mentioning. Do you know that a diamond ring costs a lot more than a cellular phone? Does that mean it's more important to society? Gold costs more per gram than rice, but if you were starving on a barren island, waiting for rescue, which one would you rather have?

The world needs what the Internet originally offered a lot more than it needs more ways to consume Hollywood media. With luck, you may learn this at some point. And that is definitely one man's opinion.

The fact that Youtube is spending $100 million on content doesn't reflect any sort of spiritual truth about the internet, its just a reflection the values and demands of internet users.

Wait, there was an outcry by Internet users for Kevin Spacey movies on Youtube? I'm pretty sure if that was true it would have filtered down to Slashdot at some point and I'd have read about it (or is it "up" to Slashdot?).

Oh, and yes, the fact that Youtube is spending $100 million on content, when it's been fantastically successful with amateur content, does indeed reflect a sort of spiritual truth about the internet, and no it does not reflect the values and demands of the users. It reflects the values and demands of a group of corporations, which you named as Qwest, Verizon, Level 3, which horned in on an Internet that was actually originally created entirely by government sponsored research programs and one very important open-source standard created by a guy and then given away to the world for free. Qwest, Verizon, Level 3, AT&T, Sprint, etc etc had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the Internet. Not one thing. In fact, they were caught flat-footed by it's very existence and have spent billions of dollars to execute a corporate takeover.

The fact that out-of-focus minds with poor depth-of-field believe that we have the big telecoms to thank for the existence of the Internet is either the purest proof of the shallowness of a generation or just an example of you being caught on a bad day and then doubling down on a proposition that was wrong from the start. Or just having a very shallow view of what's important. Or being some corporate rent-boy who owes his living to toiling in some corporate media worm farm.

I would prefer

[kelemvor4]

I would prefer for them to pony up a few bucks for some bandwidth. Youtube desperately needs it unless you have one of the ISP's that have in network mirrors.

Re:I would prefer

[jgtg32a]

So much this, YouTube has been unusable for me for the last few months. It would be one thing if I could click on a video and walk away waiting for the entire thing to load, but it will only load part of the video and once I click play it won't load the rest faster than the video plays.

good start, then buy the music industry

[s1d3track3D]

if that goes well, please consider buying the music industry, their failed business model needs a revamp

Buffering Original Content

[TPoise]

What good is spending millions on original content just to have 90% of the users on fast broadband pipes buffering for 15 minutes at 360p just to watch a preview of yet another reality TV show?

How about fixing the interface first?

[grumbel]

Original content is surely interesting, but how about fixing the interface to bring it closer to a regular TV viewing experience or just improving it in general? One thing for example currently completely missing for no good reasons are user created channels, i.e. content of similar topic, but from different creators. What Youtube currently calls channels is all just content from the same creator, running on a single account. Want to merge the work of multiple people into a single channel? Not possible. Want to run multiple regular channels from a single account? Can't do that either. The subscription system is also rather terrible, as it allows no grouping sorting or prioritizing, thus a high traffic channel will completely flood the subscription list and make it way to easy to missing new content on low traffic channels. Even something that should be completly trivial like watching a multi part video on Youtube is a complete clusterfuck, as you end up having to manually search for all the other parts as Youtubes doesn't really provide good ways to group videos together.

I do like the random user created content on Youtube quite a bit, but viewing it is far harder then it should be.

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the god aweful playlist editor, that has no means of moving videos up or down, made a mistake? Make a new playlist and start over...

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Want to merge the work of multiple people into a single channel? Not possible.

They call it a "playlist".

Anyway the strength of YouTube is that no-one should be determining what you watch. You'e stuck in a 20th-Century "TEEVEE" consumption mindset.

Go to YouTube, search for something arbitrary and see where it leads you. Just like how we used to surf the web.

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[grumbel]

That's fixed, moving videos up and down a playlist is now possible.

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[grumbel]

They call it a "playlist".

The problem with playlist is that, while they allow you to group videos, those groups are essentially invisible in the regular interface. If you come across a video that is part of a playlist, you don't actually see any hint that there exist a playlists with that video, instead you just see the random related videos. Right now I have no idea how I am even supposed so find a playlist, I can see them on the users account page, but I don't see any way to actually search for them or come across them. The only use right now of playlist seems to be that you mark the playlist as "official" for that video, which will make it show up on the video player page, but even there, that playlist is very easy to miss and not exactly well integrated.

And of course, even with that said, playlist still miss all the more advanced features, you can't subscribe to them, you can't include other playlists in them, you can't include channels in them, etc. All of that makes them rather useless right now.

Just like how we used to surf the web.

Except that's not how we use the web, most people just go to their favorite blog, news site or forum to see what's up. By far most of the web pages you look at are not stuff you found on Google, but stuff somebody else linked to.

The most popular way to link content together on Youtube right now seems to be via video descriptions and clickable annotations, as it's the only way that actually somewhat works, but then of course that only works for the original video creator, a third party can't do a best-of collection that way.

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[Kashgarinn]

I would be fine with just one fix.. If you full-screen a video in a playlist that's playing automatically, make all the rest also auto-full-screen when they start.

Really annoys me when I have to stand up and fullscreen playlist videos..

Re:How about fixing the interface first?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the playlist is sufficiently popular, it'll show in the suggested/related videos. Playlists will also show up in searches.

on this original content.

[Anarchduke]

will there be videos of cats?

Or watch my little pony

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAM9C_Ik_QU in glorious 1080p. Give it a shot before you vote it down. Not every tv series has to be about sex, love and depressions. :)

Don't hate it just because it says 'my little pony', it's unlike any previous version..

They might think so

[ThatsNotPudding]

but I couldn't possibly comment.

What's in a name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't they be changing their name to OurTube?

What is original?

[Unreal One]

Isn't it ALL original content? (Minus the official music videos and movie trailers)

What makes 'official' original content; it's produced by Google? it's costs over n dollars to produce? it airs on basic cable after it's no longer popular on You Tube?