TV Networks Discussing YouTube Rival 72
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is carrying a story indicating that NBC, CBS, Fox, and Viacom are considering banding together to work on a competitive video-hosting site. The goal would be to provide an alternative to Google's YouTube, and presumably direct some revenue in their direction." From the article: "While a deal is still far off, the four media companies envision a jointly owned site that would be the primary Web source for videos from their television networks, the paper said in an online report on Wsj.com, citing people close to the situation. The companies aim to cash in on the fast-growing market of Web video advertising and have also discussed building a Web video player that could play clips, the Journal said. "
Revenue... (Score:5, Funny)
Marketing spin... (Score:5, Funny)
The follow on move is their real money-maker (Score:4, Funny)
building a Web video player that could play clips
The TV networks aren't stupid. They've got a really long-term vision for this. After they create this "video player," which I hear is going to be called something like "FastTemporalMovement," or "HurryUpNow," they're going to start making some of these clips available on a vast, distributed network they are calling, "The ConnectedLattice." Originally they were going to call it "DenseAdaptiveRegisteredPlaybackAssociationNET," but apparently that was too close to some other experimental project someone else is working on. After their new distributed network gets activated, they're going to pass their video through a series of interconnected tubes and into this distributed network, which will then allow individual users to connect via the "FastTemporalMovement" video player and watch programming on.. get this, here's where it really gets exciting... THEIR HOME COMPUTERS!!!"
Now tell me the TV networks aren't technology and business innovators! Once people start getting a taste of this "video on your computer" thing, customers will start lining up to pay the networks for quality programming like American Idol and Deal or No Deal. The only potential snag in the networks' plan is that some viewers may, and I think this is only a slim possibility, may start producing their own video content and attempting to place it on the vast distributed network the clever TV folks thought up. What a funny thought that is: consumers actually producing content. Heh heh. Too funny. It'll never happen. The networks are WAY ahead of the game, folks.