I don’t think I’d brag quite so much if I’d lagged so far behind the market.
NBC Universal will join Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Inc. to provide content — such as Fox’s “24” and NBC’s “Heroes” — for distribution beginning this summer on AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.’s MSN and News Corp.’s MySpace sites, the companies said today.
Also included in the new free, ad-supported service will be movies from Universal Pictures and News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox studios, such as “Borat” and “Little Miss Sunshine.”
“This is a game-changer for Internet video,” said News Corp. President Peter Chernin. “We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want — professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live.”
What does it even mean to “have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch”? YouTube has that same access, although it had to build a brand name that established media companies already possess. YouTube didn’t take long to overcome its disadvantage, so there’s obviously more to this product than just access.
If implemented correctly, I don’t see a reason for this to fail. Content is king. However, proper implementation (providing extensive user control) is a major assumption. Like the music industry sitting around for half a decade while peer-to-peer networks exploded, companies with video content will probably enact a plan based in fear (think extensive DRM) and arrogance.
I might be too old, though. I’ll stick with Netflix and DVR.