NBC and News Corp could announce as early as today a partnership geared at launching an online video site to rival YouTube. The site would feature clips from programming on both networks, allowing users to modify and share them in socially relevant ways.
As if the video-sharing phenomenon hasn’t been written about enough over the last year, I find myself yet again compelled to cover the next big thing in video that the blogosphere bandwagon has become infatuated with. Today, the talk of the town is the NBC/News Corp. partnership.
Excuse me a moment while I join the writer’s room here at Murdok in a collective yawn.
Revver, IFilm, DailyMotion – the list goes on and on of video sites that have sprung up across the Internet as a direct result of YouTube’s fantastic success. And with each new site that comes along, the discussion of whether or not it could possibly become a “YouTube Killer” inevitably follows.
At this point, is it even remotely reasonable to assume that any product could come along and send YouTube packing?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a YouTube apologist. I don’t spend hours a day plowing through the video libraries looking for the latest Renetto commentary or dredging up outtakes from the third season of Thundercats (okay, just that one time) to satiate some sort of urge for video satisfaction.
To think, however, that the mere mention of a new video site’s launch could immediately propel it into the status of “YouTube Killer” is patently absurd. YouTube isn’t going anywhere. Yes, the site has had its share of legal woes within the past few months, but Google has deep pockets; so don’t expect to see the site yanked from the Internet anytime soon.
Honestly folks, the Internet has room for two successful video sharing sites. Why does every new site that comes along immediately have to be assigned this obligatory title of “YouTube Killer” when, in reality, the site can be successful without even acknowledging YouTube’s presence, much less taking direct aim at the site for digital assassination.
Why are we so anxious for someone to kill YouTube, anyway? That’s the bigger question here.
