When you think of video-sharing sites, you think of YouTube, DailyMotion, Blinkx . . . the list goes on. But MySpace probably isn’t on the list, and News Corp wants to change this fact; hence, the introduction of MySpace TV.
MySpace TV Set To Launch
“On Thursday, MySpace plans to rename and refurbish the video-sharing service on its popular social network,” reports Brad Stone for The New York Times. “The new service . . . will be set up as an independent Web site (www.myspacetv.com) that people can visit to share and watch video, even if they have not signed up for MySpace. The site will also offer some new ways for members of MySpace, which attracts 110 million users a month, to more easily integrate the videos they create and watch into their personal profiles.”
We saw a clue to this development with the introduction of “minisodes” on MySpace; minisodes, as conceived by MySpace, Sony, and Honda, were shortened versions of classic TV shows. MySpace TV will also focus on clips that are more professional in nature. “When you go to MySpace video now, what you see is far less appealing to the eye than what you get from other video sites,” admitted Jeff Berman, a MySpace executive, to Stone.
But it remains to be seen just what sort of content MySpace TV will be able to attract. Users often don’t respond well to restrictions, and according to the NYT article, “MySpace expects that part of the appeal of MySpace TV to studios and professional videomakers will be its aggressiveness in protecting intellectual property. The company was among the first major video sites to use filtering software, which checks uploaded videos to determine if they are protected by copyright.”
Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee had another couple things to say about (and/or against) MySpace TV. “We had pointed out in the past that MySpace Vids seemed to be losing ground to YouTube,” she writes. “MySpace parent News Corp is one of the founders of a joint-venture video site supposed to launch this fall, the so-called ‘NewCo.’ It’s telling that MySpace TV is not more closely integrated with that project.”
