Viacom's Deal With Joost Really Just A Bargaining Chip With YouTube?

from the Viacom-raises-the-stakes dept

Viacom is getting plenty of attention this morning for signing a deal to distribute some of its content via Joost, the tremendously hyped up peer-to-peer video streaming service created by the founders of Kazaa and Skype. Of course, given the recent decision by Viacom to demand its clips be taken off YouTube, almost every article is suggesting that Viacom did so in order to move forward with Joost. Except that Joost is different than YouTube. It's more about providing a television-like experience to viewing content, but doesn't (yet) have much of the community aspect of YouTube. Also, considering that Joost is still in private beta, it's hardly clear whether or not Joost will bring the large numbers of viewers that YouTube automatically did. About the only thing that the deal with Joost is good for right now is for Viacom to go back to the folks at Google/YouTube and say "look, Joost is willing to pay us money!" in the hopes that it will convince YouTube to pay out as well.
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  • identicon
    ScaredOfTheMan, 20 Feb 2007 @ 11:07am

    Viacom, I love your shows....seeing your clips of the daily show embedded in blogs via youtube actually played a role in my choice to upgrade to the entertainment tier from my Cable company.

    Moral of the story....Never look free distribution and promotion in the mouth.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    a, 20 Feb 2007 @ 11:10am

    And those bloggers will be able to get the same thing, just not from Google. Don't kid yourself, this is a pretty big concern for Google. Google is nothing more than the traffic cop, without content, Google is dead in the video space.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    ScaredOfTheMan, 20 Feb 2007 @ 12:07pm

    Not really.....

    I checked out the viacom official clips... the difference is what is made available and how its presented.

    Someone at comedy central decides what part of the show will make the clips. The Youtube (user generated versions) are usually more to my liking.

    I could care less that its gootube or whoever, my point is that user posted clips are almost always better than the shiny hand selected corp ones.

    I mean seriously someone is going through all that trouble to capture (maybe edit) and upload that video...for free!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sanguine Dream, 20 Feb 2007 @ 1:11pm

    As long

    as the clips aren't altered I don't see the problem.

    I start up a funny and successfull show and then months later people all over the net are posting fan made clips of my show.

    That is called word of mouth advertising. I don't have to spend as much on marketing because the fans are doing some of the work for me. As long as they acknowledge that the clips are from my show and they dont alter them then I don't see the problem.

    Oh yes I do. The corporate mentality is to control everything and get as much money as possible now at the price of the long term.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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