dcinput daily for Mon 11th Dec, 2006
Reuters: “News Corp.’s Fox, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp.. and NBC Universal are in talks about creating a video Web site to compete with Google Inc.’s YouTube”.
Ars Technica: “YouTube quietly added a new feature today to its popular user-generated video site today called Quick Capture, which allows users to record video directly to YouTube from webcams plugged into their computers”.
David Cohn: “The strength of YouTube isn’t the mass of copyrighted material and television shows, many of which have been purged. Rather, it’s the loyal community of viewers and users who upload content. That’s what Google was buying and what other media companies don’t have.”
When I first heard about YouTube’s new offering I didn’t think that much of it. There was some discussion on the videoblogging mailing list and a link to this video by someone getting really excited about the possibilities for change that online video is making happen.
Now the guy does go on a bit and is no doubt suffering from a bout of over-enthusiasm but what’s interesting is the amount of video comments people have left: 57 in 2 days. Also notice the type videos people are uploading: they’re getting creative by editing things together, dubbing in audio, some are funny, some are serious, there are even parodies. Anything to make this process easier is going to work. YouTube are innovating and they’re doing it by closely following what their users want and then giving it to them.
How will the big studios fair in this brave new world? The fact is that this two way medium [actually it’s mutli-way because everyone can dialogue with everyone] is totally different from what they are used to. What people like to do in this new online world is pretty similar to what they like to do in the real world: they like to interact, to connect, it can be fun, it can be sad, it can certainly be ugly.
One thing is certain: you can’t control this sort of thing. The question is how much are the studios willing to let us interact with them, with their employees, with their media and with each other? I’m not sure they understand, I’m not sure they are ready yet. I hope they prove me wrong.