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NBC, News Corp Join to Create YouTube Clone

Posted by Zonk on Thu Mar 22, 2007 01:38 PM
from the we're-taking-our-ball-and-going-home dept.
Television Media Movies The Internet
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."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] News: Can Large Corporations Buy "Cool?" 209 comments
TobyToadstool writes "With the recent news that NBC and News Corp. will launch a YouTube rival, CNet asks: Can big corporations buy the zeitgeist or will they inevitably screw up? CNet calls the new wannabe 'Me Too Tube.' The article looks at companies trying to buy their way into user-generated content. Quoting: 'There is something incredibly boring and sad about giant companies who constantly chase the fleeing tailcoats of the latest Internet trends. Like the kid who [leaned] over and copied you in art class, News Corp./NBC are the archetypal corporation — lumbering and so very uncool.'"
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  • What if you built it and no one came? This sounds like a huge money pit for the folks in Hollywood.

    • Re:If you build it they will come (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) * on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:55PM (#18447719) Homepage Journal
      Three words:

      GO DOT COM
      • Ahem:

        blastro.com, blip.tv, bolt.com, dailymotion.com, daum.net, devilducky.com, doubleagent.com, evideoshare.com, evtv1.com, expertvillage.com, flurl.com, g4tv.com, glumbert.com, godtube.com, gofish.com, gorillamask.net, grindtv.com, grouper.com, guba.com, ifilm.com, imeem.com, jibjab.com, jumpcut.com, livedigital.com, livevideo.com, metacafe.com, newgrounds.com, military.com, mypartypost.com, nonstoptv.ru, ouou.com, peekvid.com, pornotube.com, sharkle.com, sho.com, soapbox.msn.com, streetfire.net, superdel

    • Re:If you build it they will come (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vought (160908) on Thursday March 22 2007, @02:00PM (#18447795)
      This will fail miserably.

      -Can't store content for future use.
      -Windows/Explorer ONLY
      -Advertising
      -Crappy format

      And most importantly:

      PEOPLE DON'T SIT AT THE COMPUTER TO WATCH HALF-HOUR SHOWS.

      Apple has this figured out. Why do these people feel the need to reinvent the wheel?*

      *Actually, it's to make themselves feel smart. When this fails - and it will - they can blame filesharing, technology, or some other bugaboo.

      • 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 hav

  • Have they squatted the name wedontgetit.tv yet?

    While they're at it, maybe they should develop their own web search engine too. Oh, and a portal! And some dancing hamsters! Everyone loves the dancing hamsters!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, it's ironically the Internet articles that don't get it. The company not only didn't refer to it as a competitor to youtube but actually played down such comparisons. I think this is brilliant if you think of it from the perspective of the thing itself, and not pretending that it's competing with something that is inherently different.
    • Who says the old farts at NBC aren't hip with the kids? They're totally down the the Jim Croce and Dan Folgelberg music that the kids are into these days!

  • Displace YouTube? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mymaxx (924704) on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:42PM (#18447441)
    I just don't think NBC is going to be able to displace YouTube for the homemade videos. They'll probably get people to come and watch their shows though.
    • I would definitely watch TV shows on this. The big difference is that on the couch there's not much time to do a lot while commercials are on. If it's on the web, I can alt-tab and read slashdot or fark. Good times.

  • Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oh yeah? Well I'll create my own YouTube! With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the YouTube!

  • great... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kennedy (18142) on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:45PM (#18447521) Homepage
    but what will it cost to view the content? i mean it seems to me that one of the largest draws to youtube is that it's free and good for a quick time waster/video fix. remove the free aspect, and youtube would have been just another failed web start up. anyway i highly doubt news corp and/or nbc would be open to simply giving away viewings to movies. NBC is already dabbling with free tv shows online (the only example that comes to mind is Heroes - you can catch that on nbc.com for free [they advertise it with each episode of heroes on the tube).

  • Seriously, I'm amazed that these parties would even be caught in the same room together. I've been to industry meetings (different industry) where many of the major players get together. All such meetings are preceeded by a highly-paid attorney telling us exactly what we can and cannot talk about. Even if we just heard the same lecture 2 hours ago.

  • I have a question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stratjakt (596332) on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:46PM (#18447539) Journal
    Is any video sharing site to be labelled a youtube clone?

    Just like newbies to the intarweb would think that Yahoo is a "google clone"?

    Is this a "Apple invented the computer, mp3 player, and are currently inventing the phone right now and we cant wait" type of a deal?

    I just remember seeing video on the internet pre-youtube.
    • No, only crappy sites can be YouTube or YouTube clones. :p

      (I'll let you know what good ones are called when one shows up.)

  • As if google didn't know (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shawn443 (882648) on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:48PM (#18447587) Homepage
    How is this bad? This is natural. I did not expect gootube to be the end all for online video. I doubt google expected a monopoly position either. We are only seeing natural competition within this type of service.
  • If the media conglomerates are going to create a source of truly free content, then more power to them. But I won't be holding my breath.

  • NBC = bad track record (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MobyDisk (75490) on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:55PM (#18447731) Homepage
    I hope it is better than NBC's Video Rewind site which lets you view previous episodes of their shows [nbc.com]. It is so glitchy that it is probably easier for an end-user to install BitTorrent, find a site, and download it. They use Flash video, so you get postage-stamp size video. They divide it into 6 sections and run short commercials in-between -- shorter than network TV commercials, which would be nice... except that half the time it gets stuck and doesn't move on to the next section. Then if you try to seek it displays another commercial. And it plays the video before it is buffered so you have to pause/play it manually and guesstimate when it is safe. Then of course, if you mis-click, or the playback glitches, you seek and get an ad and have to start over. It took me 2 hours to watch a 1 hour episodeof Lost.

    To top it off, it crashed when I exit the browser (Safari) which is sad since I can spent hours watching videos on YouTube without it crashing.

    Why can't they just stream an .MP4 file? It's a standard, cross-platform format that every OS has a player for. Sheesh.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by YojimboJango (978350)
      About two months ago I would've agreed with you about the NBC Video Rewind. However they've really improved it over the last few weeks. Video quality is better than youTube and I haven't had it skip once on the 14.99 a month dsl package that I watch from.

      I will give you points for accuracy about what it used to be. I tried watching it after hours on the work T1 line about 2 months ago and the video halted, audio got out of synch with the video and a lot of times the video wouldn't come back after the
    • It took me 2 hours to watch a 1 hour episodeof Lost.

      Might I suggest instead, taking merely half an hour to watch a half-hour episode of something similar but independent?

      www.thehousebetween.com [thehousebetween.com]

      No ads, no lag, no copyright infringement. Just free entertainment for sci-fi hungry folks like us.
      • Meh, if I can't even get a simple MPEG or AVI that I can watch on my HTPC, it's not worth my time...
    • Of course it's going to be lagged if you're waiting for Lost on NBC.com, Lost is an ABC show.
  • As someone who doesn't have or watch TV (except downloaded shows), I really hope this comes to fruition. I don't care about ads or commercials at this time -- being able to watch legitimate, high-quality shows and movies will be a blessing. I'll be waiting patiently!

  • A predictable step (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BlueCoder (223005) on Thursday March 22 2007, @02:01PM (#18447817)
    Youtube was ahead of it's time. It was inevitable that the media conglomerates would try to role their own. They will find out exactly how expensive and difficult it is to do this type of site and predictably the small players and producers will eventually go with Youtube and then the major ones will crumble one by one as they strike amicable deals due to customer demand for a single site.

  • If you can't beat 'em... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by themushroom (197365) on Thursday March 22 2007, @02:02PM (#18447839) Homepage
    ...join 'em.

    Hey, I think it's great that NBC would want to get into the video offerings business. Reason why people post copyrighted material to YouTube is so it will be available. NBC has already been making overtures in that direction with some of their shows (like the standup routines from 'Last Comic Standing' S5) and Fox has performances from 'American Idol' on their site, ergo you don't have to go to find a Torrent or browse YouTube et aliis to see what you missed.

    And for that reason, NBC's assimilating seems a smarter move than Viacom's bitching, IMHO.
    • I also like how NBC has put all of Heroes online. Through their website I watched basically all of the episodes. If they didn't put them online I wouldn't be watching the series right now since I missed the first 8 episodes when they aired and then finally decided to start watching it. Yes there are ads, about 6 15 second clips total. I know some people can't stand any ads at all but I can put up with these adds. There isn't enough time to get up and get a snack or use the bathroom before the ad is ove
  • ...until someone posts these new NBC videos over on YouTube.... I hear NBC will call their site NoobTube.
    • Nah. I heard someone refer to it as "Colon".

      "Colon?" I asked.

      Yeah - it's gonna be Poo-tube!

  • That's funny (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Z0mb1eman (629653) on Thursday March 22 2007, @02:14PM (#18448023) Homepage
    Almost every discussion about music, movies or TV shows here has countless replies saying "But the industry doesn't GET IT, man!! Their business model is OUTDATED!! If they gave me this content for cheap with no DRM I wouldn't have to pirate it!!"

    So here comes an announcement that they'll be putting content online for FREE - and they'll be the ones making the money from the ads, not youtube, which seems only fair to me - and again I see replies of "but the industry doesn't GET IT!!". I think that's kinda funny.

    This site could go either way, but to me it's the first indication that they might be starting to "get it".

    • Well (Score:3, Interesting)

      by unity100 (970058)
      people are yelling like this, because they are still not believing it is actually happening.

      neither am i.

      ill only believe it when i see it.
    • Emphasis on "might" -- TFA doesn't mention DRM one way or another, but a proprietary DRM-enabled browser plug-in to view the content (probably only available for Windows Vista) would not surprise me. The advertiser-supported free-as-in-beer part is nice, but it's not exactly a new business model for the TV industry.
  • Note to NBC and News Corp: it's not a YouTube clone unless you deliver the goods in an easily viewed format (such as Flash) and with no DRM.

    I'm pessimistically expecting Windoze Media with lotsa DRM.
  • I mean, honestly, are they?

    To me, it would make a LOT more buisness sensefor these major companies to strike up a deal where full-length shows and such are allowed on their website, however a certain number of links on the main page must go to things from their channels.

    It's the best form of advertising; people being able to "try" a "full version" of your product.

    For all the degrees and everything that are required for a marketing person high on the chain, they sure are fucking stupid.
  • if you are embracing the internet revolution, do it just right.
  • has 24 and other full fox shows online with LESS ADS then on TV.
  • Here's the problem. NBC and NewsCorp makes a site. Disney makes a site. Viacom makes a site. Everybody and their brother makes a site. Now, you have a dozen different video sites all making sure that no one else downloads their videos anywhere else. If you want a SNL video, you go to one site. If you want a Daily Show video, it's another site. Download a Pixar clip, another site. That was the big advantage of YouTube. It wasn't like these clips weren't already on the Web. It was the fact you only had to go
  • Are they going to grace those of us with IPs outside of the US with the ability to watch said content? I'd bet not (even though I live 45min. north of the US and watch all its TV).

    In that case, back to YouTube!
    • Considering the BBC locks anybody outside of the UK out of their online TV content, I'm going to have to say no. I know, television licenses,etc. But that's where the magic of BitTorrent comes in!
  • The folks who are really happy today are Akamai, Limelight Networks and Equinix, who supply content distribution network (CDN) and video peering services for NBC/Universal and MySpace. Lots and lots more big video files will be moving to anf from through their networks.
    • Not necessarily. People will still do it anyway and YouTube has more of a purpose than the mashup of TV shows. Some musicians, rather than posting their videos on their websites, are posting on YouTube and then linking directly to that from their website. There is always a need for a service where literally anyone can post anything, and much of the content is more than music videos set to Battlestar Galactica scenes.

    • Re:And so ends YouTube (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) * on Thursday March 22 2007, @01:45PM (#18447509) Homepage Journal
      B.S.

      It's crap - not community driven. It misunderstands the interest in YouTube.

      YouTube is not popular because people are "snagging free stuff" that they already have on their Tivo, etc. Repackaging the TV is stupid. That is an aspect of YouTube, and the only one that this is a reaction to.

      The Corporations who are driving this "partnership" never even heard of "All your base are belong to us" - let alone understood what it means. The Internet is a social phenomenon, not just a marketing experience.

      People who've destroyed their creative thinking process in the marketing field fail to understand this.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nanoflower (1077145)
        Of course it's crap. It was a decision made by accountants. They saw the number of viewers that YouTube was getting, and they may even have some preliminary numbers for the TV shows that have ended up on YouTube and they wanted that money for themselves. They think if they set up a site with TV shows they will pull in the viewers and get all of the money for themselves. It might be by using ads or perhaps they want to use the site to sell DVDs and new episodes to viewers that check out the site (instead of
        • If they would actually just put up the episodes, without requiring you to watch advertisements, with just advertisements on the sides, then I think they could catch some of the audience. If they make it easier than going to Youtube, then why shouldn't the people go to their site. If they provide a couple links to buy the DVDs and T-shirts, then i'm sure they'd make a few bucks.
      • They think that they can squeeze YouTube out, but since the take down notices, I have not had my YouTube searching impacted at all. I don't spend my day searching for stupid TV shows (that's why I don't watch NBC). There are only a few channels I actually watch, and none of them have shows I watch all the time. TV is going the way of the music industry. They are losing focus on what people want and are following equations to make shows that will make profit. The problem is that people are starting to g
    • Um...........

      You really think the people in charge of this little venture know that 'mashup' is a word that sometimes doesn't involve food?

      Be serious. This isn't going to end YouTube. This might cause a little healthy competition. Honestly, I'm kinda disappointed because YouTube isn't clusterf*d with video ads all the time, and this will be. There's little chance you'll get to watch short clips of pieces of the Daily Show. You'll get to watch the entire thing, and commercials will come with. Lame? Yeah, kinda.

      And my bet is their solution will be DRM enhanced. Another little bit of lame.

    • Re:who (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AresTheImpaler (570208) on Thursday March 22 2007, @02:25PM (#18448203)
      I do.. sometimes.. :( leave me alone..
      a tv tunner card + coding session (or web browsing) = happy me
      I just resize the video and put it on the bottom right corner.
    • I do, except they are nice full screen (even HD) videos. Ah the wonders of bittorrent. I generally watch shows that aren't available in my market (like TopGear) but I've been known to watch a missed episode of Battlestar Galactica to catch up. There's no reason that the media providers can't use a bittorrent like interface with a big initial seed from their servers to provide full resolution content.
    • People without TVs. :)

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