Two Time Warner sites are making serious moves into online video. CNN is expected to formally launch today a system for collecting user generated content, with video at the center of its strategy. The basics are already up at CNN Exchange. The system will be powered by Blip.tv – quite a deal to land for them. A CNet story this weekend said that war footage from Lebanon found on YouTube was a big part of the inspiration for Exchange, but you have to assume this has been in the works for some time. CNN Exchange will of course be about submission more than upload or sharing; I’ll be curious to see what percentage of submitted videos appear on the site. CNN will retain non-exclusive ownership of the submitted content and does not appear to plan compensation for content providers.
In related news the New York Times reported this morning that AOL, where many services will become free on Wednesday, will launch a video service this week. Commercial free downloads-to-own will start at $1.99 and various free offerings will join AOL’s video search for content across the web.
Since CNN and AOL are Time Warner companies one question seems to be whether any cross pollination in video strategy will go on.
Another question worth asking though is: does this mean certain death for the countless video sharing and downloading startups coming online? Probably not. Each will have its own unique feel, likely all with far less editorial control than these two big players.
In the end the dichotomy remains the same: try to get past the corporate editors and into big media in exchange for massive exposure or on the other hand try to create something compelling that will go viral across countless other channels.
CNN is likely to never allow unmediated upload of content on to its site because it’s such an uncomfortable position to be in from a branding perspective for companies born in the media-as-gatekeeper era. It’s hard to imagine CNN letting in enough video to offer site visitors the kind of endless clicking around that YouTube offers. Not to mention that talking dogs aren’t going to make it to CNN. YouTube minus talking dogs (and other copyrighted content) vs. sites like CNN plus user video would be a whole other equation.
I imagine that the glut of video services online is a much bigger barrier to effective entry than is the launch of services by these big players. These will probably always be two very different sorts of sites.
I can’t imagine AOL or Time Warner doing anything this technical well, they’re media companies, not tech companies. Do you see hundreds of thousands of “YouTube.com” users jumping ship to be apart of the cool (Time Warner) site? I have a vivid imagination, but that is something I just don’t see happening. If they want this free video content, why don’t the just buy (YouTube.com) or another already popular video startup? They would benefit from the positive onslaught of media buzz about the purchase “mySpace effect”, and it would give them instant content they can use immediately, vs the current lets build it and hope it works approach. Does anybody agree with this?
One thing that seems to happen on the net now is, when the big boys start playing the game, many people decide to play a different game.
They will be able to force some success because of the money they can put behind it, but I don’t believe they will see the wild popularity that youtube and others have seen. “Oh man, check out this video I found on CNN!!!” See – it just doesn’t sound as cool as youtube.
Someone please tell me why anyone would want to send footage to CNN when they get non-exclusive ownership of the submitted content without paying the user for the content????
Its not that hard to setup video sharing or a social network service of your own especially when you already have a solid audience base so its a smart move by them. The question is can they both do it right for their respective audiences… AOL is US based and CNN is a global brand with lots of international potential to shape this on a global basis, however knowing how they operate with so many internal conflicts of interest and ego clashes, I have my doubts…
But if CNN promises to broadcast the popular ones on TV, that could change the game. Their assest is the TV network and audience and they can tie that into the online site. Youtube can’t do that, yet.
@wayne: I’d say that %99.9 of that “instant YouTube content” is of no interest to CNN (or makes them nervous wrt copyright violations). Why would they want to buy that?
@Ping: Yes, user-generated content that *could* be broadcast on TV has a lot of glamour appeal to content generators. Could be a good diferentiator. While web distribution is all the rage right now, having one’s content on TV is still very sexy.
cgraham149: Read the YouTube terms of service and tell me why anyone would want to send footage to YouTube when they get non-exclusive ownership of the submitted content without paying the user for the content. If (and that’s a big if) any of these services start generating major revenues from the user-created content I think you’ll see users wanting a cut. It is definitely in the best interests of these companies to keep their content producers happy and the content rolling in.
It seems that as of late, some big players and Fortune 500 companies are
catching on to Web 2.0 technologies or at least trying to. In my opinion, they don’t capture the creativity and customer centricity that new services and start-ups have.
wow. what horrible ui design.
I agree with you Techwarrior. Most of these players are jumping in because this is a hot market. It’s not their core business and thus they don’t have the motivation to devote a lot of resources to these areas. Their businesses won’t live or die on their Web 2.0 ventures. But they do have tons of cash and resources that make them formidable opponents. The problem startups like YouTube have is that they need to find a business model fast. I suspect the growth of their burn rate due to the costs of serving so many videos is considerably higher than their revenue growth. They will be able to continue to tap the capital markets for now, but at some point they’re going to have to start making big money or sell out.
This is no different than the last bubble. Even though they’re creative and run by motivated, customer-centric people, 99% of these startups will fail and when the field clears, big companies will still be around and by virtue of that will have a strong position in the marketplace. First mover advantage is not all it’s cracked up to be. By sticking around and seeing how things play out, big companies can learn from the mistakes of early entrants. Let them exhaust themselves and then move in for the kill. In any race, the hare may get off to a quicker start but the tortoise often wins. And if the tortoise doesn’t win or have the desire to race, it can buy the hare (think News Corp. buying MySpace).
CNN is targeting a different demographic and userbase. Most of the people on Myspace and youtube don’t know what CNN is
I think CNN Exchange is a great way to break into consumer created/captured footage that can further enhance CNN’s coverage of events from a personal perspective. Interesting to see if AOL and CNN will end up competing if CNN launches an expanded version of their service.
As Shuki Haiminis notes, CNN has a “different demographic and userbase” than MySpace and YouTube, and I think that bearing in mind the CNET story mentioned in this post–bearing in mind that CNN was inspired by war footage from Lebanon placed on YouTube–CNN might be able to capitalize on the integrity their name has with this demographic. In Vietnam network TV news changed war, and maybe it’ll take the trust that comes with a name like CNN to let civilian video change war again.
Adding some thoughts… I don’t believe YouTube’s user base is even slightly loyal, it’s all about content. Once YouTube is forced (and this IS happening) to take down all copyrighted material, the users will flock to the next ’safe haven.’ Sound familiar? It should, the last time it went something like Napster – Grokster – Kazaa – Torrent…
Remember, you can’t get 100 MILLION daily video streams with all long-tail content (which, at present, is about 95% awful, and I’m being generous).
I am dubious to believe CNN or AOL can really pull off the same phenomenon as YouTube has, but I also don’t think that that necessarily matters. They don’t NEED the same traffic, it’s all supplemental. Furthermore, if they can slowly intertwine professional and amateur content together, they could actually come up with something compelling.
And to whomever said it above – UI does NOT matter at this stage in the land grab. Not for a long long time. UI is nice and all, but YouTube ain’t so gorgeous itself.
Most important here is the fact that the big players are making a stab at it, which I believe makes them MUCH less likely to look into acquisition paths. Why buy something you can build for next-to-nothing, when the traffic base (aka ‘the asset’) is unlikely to follow?
tesing
One point CNN and AOL miss out (by a mile) is that the major part of the success of YouTube and the likes is because of the viewer’ perception of unbiasness of the content at these sites. CNN is a news organization and whatever you see on CNN, let it be user content, will always be percieved as edited/censored. Similar thing can be said about AOL. User generated contents (blog, video) are largely successful because they lack such perception in the readers’ mind.
So whatever CNN and AOL are doing will have its own territory… different than that of YouTube’s.
Shirish makes a good point. CNN and AOL cater to a different audience than YouTube and Guba
YouTube sold its soul–and its love base–to the devil already. They might as well get it over with and sell out completely to Microsoft anyway. That would be the big boy move.
YouTube sold its soul–and its love base–to the devil already. They might as well get it over with and sell out completely to Microsoft anyway. That would be the big boy move.