rotten bananas

A group of seemingly large and important companies is banning together to create the next YouTube Killer, or at least a competitor. TechCrunch has some notes from a press discussion posted. Michael makes some comments in the post about confusion and haziness. I’d say that’s a complete understatement.

I’ll try to sum up what I’ve figured out so far. They are creating a service that directly competes with YouTube by offering copyrighted material through a legal medium. Some of this copyrighted material will cost money, but most of it will be free. It will be ‘the largest advertising platform on earth.’ It will not be a YouTube Killer. Users will be able to submit videos, but it will be mostly premium content.

Essentially, they are recreating YouTube with a few stipulations. They’ll draw in customers by offering lots of free content that will be supplemented with ads. The really good stuff will cost money. Users will be able to publish their own content, but NBC Universal’s think tanks will be able to outproduce them. It’s guilt-free YouTube with commercials and sometimes costs money. Got it?

I have a couple questions. Firstly, they want to offer premium content. Aren’t they already doing this on their website? Jeff Zucker (CEO NBC Universal) even mentions it:

“We are shocked at the willingness of the consumer to sit through the whole show with ads on NBC.com”

What’s the shock? YouTube has proven by far that people will sit and watch really stupid crap on their computers. Apple has even made some money in the business. Also, people have been sitting through entire shows with ads since the dawn of television…

Anyway, I suppose if they’re centralizing the offerings from multiple sources, then they’re bringing something new to the table. Otherwise don’t bother. Don’t confuse my already complex lifestyle. Bringing movies is an idea. I’m positive there’s a market for it. But I still refuse to believe people will sit at their computers for hours to watch anything.

Some content will be user generated, but most will be premium. Is there a quota or something? Otherwise, I don’t see the general populous being beaten out by any conglomerate. Unless of course they’re not planning on anyone using the service, which I think is a conflict of interest.

From my observations, it seems that in this crazy Web 2.0 world, if you build it (and market viral like), they will come, if only to say that they came. I’m sure there will be some success. I’m not sure why, but I’m anticipating some. If for nothing else, then because there’s a lot of money behind it. A ton. Like truck fulls, dump trucks.

In the mean time, NBC Universal will continue their fight against YouTube showing copyrighted material. Which I’d say is pretty obvious. I just had a funny notion. What if NBC stole videos from YouTube for their own site to generate user submission interest. Now that’s a plan. Who would steal crappy user generated videos? We’d all be completely oblivious!

Keep your eyes open. This might be worth watching. I dare say it could become interesting. They’re certainly shooting for the stars. It’s all very dramatic. And, if nothing else, I’ve learned that highly-paid CEO’s, the ’smartest’ of our ranks, are by no means immune to humility and pressure. It seemed to me they were spouting off positives left and right like children begging for candy just to avoid looking stupid. Which is a look the public likes to see on anyone important, and inevitably does.