NBC, NewsCorp to announce YouTube Competitor | Hacker News Reader

NBC, NewsCorp to announce YouTube Competitor

techcrunch.com

5 pointsfar33d6 comments

A senior VP at NBC recently asked me for my advice regarding digital media strategy, and YouTube obviously came up in the course of our conversation.

I'm still waiting to actually see what the service delivers, but I'm a bit worried for YouTube concerning how News Corp/NBC will use exclusive content to grab eyeballs.

On the other hand, especially execution-wise, those old media guys at NBC have absolutely no idea what they're doing.

I think their opportunity is to use their access to "deep" works to make a site that is really suited for that kind of video.

YouTube, even the modern web, is all about shallow content - something that grabs your attention for a few minutes. Popular sites are like tapas bars. It remains to be seen what a site with more depth to its offerings can really accomplish. Something more like a sit-down restaurant.

We know they have compelling stuff to show us -- people already spend lots of time discussing and communicating about it online and off. But they have to build an environment suited to that kind of entertainment.

It's an exciting problem in many ways, but it involves changing peoples' behavior and expectations, which is, um, very hard.

This will be an interesting data point about whether two giant companies (and not even technology companies) can produce something to compete with a startup. I think the odds are heavily against them. In fact, it might be worth starting the startup they'll have to buy when their own in-house development efforts fail.

I'm so glad I'm going to be at startup school this weekend.

Great Kicker: Google doesn't seem to be particularly worried, either: execs are reportedly referring to the project as "Clown Co."

new data on this partnership from arrington's notes from the conference call:

"Zucker is now on. Talking about importance of significant IP protection as a primary goal."

Doomed.

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