Court Stops Patent Office From Limiting Continuations

Best Buy To Offer A Paid YouTube Clone?

from the but-why? dept

Thu, Nov 1st 2007 8:55am — Mike Masnick

Best Buy may have been able to trick people over its fake website, unwanted MSN subscriptions and impossible to obtain rebates, but can it also fool people into believing you need to pay Best Buy to host your home video clips online? Apparently the company thinks so. It's unveiling its own "alternative to YouTube" for customers to host their home videos. The only catch? While YouTube is free, Best Buy's offering will $7 for 100 minutes worth of video hosting. Considering that Best Buy's prices are rarely your actual best buy, perhaps the company has just settled into the fact that its sweet spot is in serving the uninformed customer who doesn't seem to mind paying for what's free elsewhere.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: video sharing
Companies: best buy, youtube

16 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2007 @ 9:42am

I like BestBuy :-(

But really, while you don't have to be a genius to host a video on YouTube, depending on what it is offering, "Grandparents" may flock to such a service
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TheDock22, 1 Nov 2007 @ 10:09am

An advantage...
I could see one Advantage to Best Buy's service and that is having your videos backed up. YouTube does not really care if their servers go down and you lose your video.

I don't use YouTube, but can you lock down your videos so only people you specify can see them? If not, this would be another advantage to a hosted service.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2007 @ 10:12am

Re: An advantage...
Actually, you can specify to certain people. I believe you can specify user names or just whoever you give your link to.

I haven't used YT in a long time, however, because I haven't filmed much lately and the community is terrible. I much more prefer the community when I started (which was right around when YT started.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Guy, 1 Nov 2007 @ 10:50am

I'm Suprised
Mike,

I'm a bit surprised by your summation of the Best Buy deal. Since you normally point that free actually adds value to paid products and services, to show your disdain on a company providing paid services that cuts into the market share of a free service really surprises me, and seems to go against your earlier arguments.

The paid service appears to offer a better value by adding services such as limited access, extended video length, and possibly better compression services. ( youtube compress the quality of the video as the length of the segment increases )

I guess I was just curious how all your other arguments about the value of how free and paid services coexist and build on one another doesn't apply to this Best Buy venture?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 1 Nov 2007 @ 11:40am

Re: I'm Suprised
I guess I was just curious how all your other arguments about the value of how free and paid services coexist and build on one another doesn't apply to this Best Buy venture?

Because if a paid service is going to compete with a free one it has to offer significantly better value that's easy and clear for people to understand. That doesn't seem to be the case with the Best Buy offering. You can get longer videos on YouTube. If you want better quality there are other free sites like Vimeo, which also offers privacy features like the Best Buy offering.

If you're going to offer something that's a paid service, it really needs to be for the types of things that aren't already free elsewhere.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cathy, 1 Nov 2007 @ 11:59am

I wouldn't sell Best Buy short. Yes, YouTube is free, but the quality has gone way down the tubes in the past year. It's gotten to the point where it's nearly pointless to upload any animation there because it winds up rendering down to colored blobs. OK, I'm exaggerating... but not by much.

For a long time, I've said I'd pay to have an enhanced account that kept the quality of my videos intact. If Best Buy offers something like this, I would consider using it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JGM, 1 Nov 2007 @ 12:17pm

As usual, Mike gets his analogies wrong: this isn't a YouTube alternative so much as it is a video version of Picasa and similar image-hosting services. The value comes not in that it's a place to upload your videos but in the access control, auto-notify and subscription services.

The competition is a few ad-supported free sites that haven't reached critical mass or shown real scalability yet (primarily Vimeo). A name-brand, scalable, easy-to-use, ad-free service may just have a chance, particularly if it offers guaranteed full-quality backup of digital video.

Now, what *I'd* pay for would be a service that would take my old 2-hour home videos and artfully edit them down to something watchable. This seems like the type of time-consuming task that an army of low-paid but talented kids in a developing country would be perfect for.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Buzz, 1 Nov 2007 @ 12:47pm

Free Money for Best Buy
We who are educated Internet users know better and probably would never touch the service.

However, there are enough ignorant people out there who (believe it or not) know nothing of YouTube (or assume that it too is a paid service). Best Buy WILL make money off this... probably a healthy sum.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Adam, 1 Nov 2007 @ 1:06pm

to JGM and Cathy...
Seriously -- these two sound like they are Best Buy corporate execs.

When was the last time a Best Buy staff member was even the least bit knowledgable about a product, or online service?

Would you really trust a company that has done what Best Buy has done in the past with website pricing versus store pricing?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070209/124307.shtml

I'd much rather go with a company with a strong online rep for this sort of thing. Sounds like a 'me too' type thing for BB to get in on this space. You're right poster #1, it is 'for grandma'
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Adam, 1 Nov 2007 @ 1:08pm

oh yeah, completely unrelated to the thread...
but related to best buy:

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/

check that out !
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cathy, 1 Nov 2007 @ 1:25pm

to Adam...
ha, no I'm not a Best Buy exec... I'm a disgruntled YouTube user :P

I also stated, if YouTube were to offer a paid upgrade to keep the quality of my videos intact, I'd stay with them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com, 1 Nov 2007 @ 2:19pm

Buzz hit the target
Buzz posted exactly what I was thinking. We all take for granted our knowledge of things tech or Internet related.

Best Buy is going to sell this service like crazy to the millions of first time computer buyers that have no idea what is out there.

They will eventually learn like we all did but never assume the average consumer is Tech savy and is able to make an informed decision. The sales person is going to be king when it comes to signing these people up.

I just hope the service is easy to cancel for those that wish to do so as many companies somehow have "problems" when it comes to cancelling an automatic payment from your credit card or bank account.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JGM, 1 Nov 2007 @ 2:51pm

Adam's comment (Re: to JGM and Cathy...)
Like so many here, you get caught up in the all good/all bad mentality. Yes, BB has done some stupid things in the past. That doesn't mean that everything it does is stupid. Critical thinking works both ways, try responding to the concept presented rather than knee-jerking about who is presenting it. For an enterprise like this, there may well be a sharp execution team behind it (as there is for something like Firedog installation at CC). Or not.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Kired, 1 Nov 2007 @ 4:14pm

Mike has nailed his point. Also, upgraded video over YT see GoFish
[ link to this | view in thread ]
another mike, 2 Nov 2007 @ 7:31am

Re: Re: I'm Suprised
I think the extra value that Best Buy provides is their marketing effort. They get to go out and reach all those that might not really know what youtube is...believe it or not, there are a lot of folks with video cameras out there that really don't get the Interent thing...What's the quote? A fool and his money are soon parted? (Fool is a little harsh, but the idea is the same.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PH, 3 Nov 2007 @ 4:39pm

YouTube clones: can you buy them?
If I want to setup a website hosting Flash video content with all the bells and whistles of YouTube, can I buy a platform off-the-shelf?

Apparently, you can. I just found one site: http://www.deccanbazaar.biz/search.php?what=youtube&x=0&y=0

Can someone educate me:
1> Is this a scam?
2> If genuine, once I pay $60 and download the script, what supporting software do I need to buy additionally?
3> Is it "scalable"? Probably not!

Thanks
PH
[ link to this | view in thread ]