Catch Me if You Can ...

Adam Lashinsky has a sarcastic write-up on News Corp. and NBC Universal's attempt to compete with YouTube (see "Catching Google's YouTube won't be easy").

He correctly points out the obvious signs that suggest this to be yet another feeble and futile gesture that points to the massive incompetence of "old' media at dealing with the "new", failing to control their own brand. And that they already appear to control the monetization of their product, by simple example.

Yet another consortium of big guys without a clue, even though they have a "good enough" business strategy already in place if they care to follow through. Read more ...

It gets back to the Larry Ellison "it's not good enough that I do well, everyone else has to lose as well". Thus, the vain goal of the consortium is to take away YouTube's audience entirely, so they can retain the dominant control they are used to of their media. But just as other internet video attempts like Moviebeam, they'll tie themselves up in knots with the restrictions to protect their business interests, never get traction with the consumer who doesn't understand and doesn't care, and never in the end go anywhere.

Finally the 500 pound gorilla is visible - but its too late to put it back in the cage.

4 years back I was pitching to Roelof Botha that web video hadn't taken off because of the volume of content (millions of titles), that if you assembled it into a spot it would be watched and become hot. WB and others laughed, saying nobody watched, and who would dare damage the brand by pursing rotten quality video, that they'd tried with a few hundred to thousand titles, and that was good enough.
Seems it is now.

The smartest thing to do at this point is to leverage/control YouTube and direct back into your brand, having a video portal for your properties, which has a better experience and closer involvement - this is what I've been telling them for years, demoing ways to do mashups and favorite scenes in minutes just with a web browser. They don't want to have "hands-on" control on the front-end of the process, where the costs for them to control the brand and control the interaction with the consumer is best. So they will be losing this option soon, which is mind boggling.

As Adam points out with finding the video on ComedyCentral, the take-downs work well enough, and the ability to monetize is right in their hands. Shouldn't this be exactly what they want in the first place?