Here’s the latest on YouTube — and a worthy competitor called Metacafe.
CNET News.com: Is YouTube a flash in the pan?
As video-sharing site YouTube rides an enormous wave of popularity, a research firm has expressed doubts about the company’s business prospects.
Josh Martin, an IDC research analyst, issued a report Thursday asserting that YouTube will struggle to squeeze profits from its video-sharing business, primarily because its audience has grown accustomed to paying nothing for the service. …
YouTube fans … don’t want promotional clips that the network chooses, writes Martin, they want the funniest, edgiest skits SNL has to offer, or at least some of them. The problem, said John Miller, NBC’s chief marketing officer, is that such SNL snippets are already offered on iTunes for a fee. Cable station E Entertainment also owns the broadcast rights to SNL segments. Making them available for free on YouTube isn’t in anyone’s best interest, said Miller.
Martin said in his report that he expects copyright issues to plague YouTube and its rivals well into the future.
Which is why Ourmedia has been adament in removing infringing content from our site.
Molly Wood at CNET Reviews: IDC: Don’t get too used to YouTube.
CNET News.com: NBC strikes deal with YouTube
iTnews.com: Google adds YouTube features to video service.
Meantime, here’s a more interesting site in some ways: Metacafe, one of the top 100 sites in the world, has been streaming 280 million videos a month. The 3-year-old company just raised $15 million to try and compete with YouTube, Google Video and other video hosting sites.
Mashable: Metacafe Gets $15 million for Video-Sharing Site.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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