Online-Video Changed Forever Today: Google/YouTube Takes on iTunes & Cable TV
Organize the world’s information. That was the initial mission of Google, so I have found it ineresting that the company has taken significant steps (like buying YouTube and launchin Knol) to host and distribute it.
You see, there’s a big difference between organizing information for easy search… and actually hosting it with ads.
In a non-trivial move, YouTube today announced that it’s offering a new pay-for-download service (using Google checkout, of course) which allows viewers to buy and download select creators’ videos.
While this may not seem like a significant move, it’s actually the start of a major threat to Apple’s iTunes and other cable and phone providers — as well as any comany that charges flat or variable fees for video distribution.
Content owners will participate (I know I will when invited) and viewers will use it (and I know I’ll buy select content). Then, friends, Google/YouTube is just one step away from making my AppleTV and Verizon Fios obsolete… it just needs to create or sanction Google player boxes that allow us to surf from my television set without the monthly fee of a cable service. And based on Android, that’s not far away. It’s content ala carte… just the way I’d like it.
I currently live on my Apple TV because I like surfing YouTube and Apple’s easy navigation for buying TV shows and movies. I’ve bought more movies and television shows in the past two months than in the 3 years prior. The Verizon Fios highspeed boxes, by contrast, are horrible, slow, and cost me a cursed monthly rental beyond my regular plan. So I long for the day I can return these boxes, and go web only. Of course I still need cable service for my kids, and for access to whatever select television shows we watch regularly (almost never live). But many of these shows are now available on Alec Baldwin’s Hulu.com, which could be accessed with an AppleTV-like box.
I can’t believe there’s a device for viewing web video on my TV available at Best Buy for $199.00. There will be in 2010, and there are some limited devices here reviewed by DeviceGuru.
Manufacturers I beg you… work with Google and create the killer Cable TV busting device. Consumers will love it, content creators will get wider distribution and revenue, and we can stop pretending we need Comcast or Verizon television. Sorry, I’m not a big fan of middle men that get greedy with high fees, poor service and rented boxes. And I trust Google to run all of this reasonably — at least more than I do my cable or phone service.
Naturally, a competitor would ensure that Google doesn’t have a complete monopoly on web distribution, but I’ll let the FCC worry about that.
alec baldwin owns hulu? rly? /facepalm
Just blogged about this myself, it’s a GREAT move by YouTube. I love the directions they are heading in to help monetize and keep content creators.
It was only a matter of time before they introduced this.. maybe one day there’ll be the technological know-how to automatically spell-checking blog posts before publishing them!
LOZZLES >__<
I really like this idea. I just hope that it’s something that will trickle down to all the “ordinary” partners like myself, and won’t stay stuck in the stratosphere of the special, “managed” partners or whatever YouTube calls the partners who get all the extra goodies.
You’re very right, this is big. That being said, I strongly doubt that even with all of Google’s clout they can beat Apple, which has years of traction behind them. Seriously, if you don’t have iTunes on Your computer, the only explanation is that it might be time to admit your old 386 running windows 95 and Explorer 3.0 just isn’t up to the task anymore.
It is big news. Big, exciting, and a little scary. Is anyone else slightly hesitant to enjoy that Google is slowly taking over everything?
Rey has the worst gas this morning. I swear my whole apartment smells like open ass!
You hit the nail on the head. Google is going to dominate information access and therefore dominate the world. It’s only a matter of time.
Stay on top,
-Scott Summit
DBNR
How come you keep wearing that girdle on the outside of your clothes? Are you taunting us with your sexiness? I think you would look great in a bustier, preferably with fishnet hose and size 12 black patent letter platform shoes. but don’t shave anything, especially your armpit hair.
That could be your valentine’s day present to me. Or your halloween costume next fall.
Nalts, I have what you are looking for. GET INTO THIS NOW.
http://boxee.tv – They are working on their own native box now, but you can already add it to AppleTV easily with a USB drive.
It plays:
Hulu
ABC
NBC
Comedy Central
COUNTLESS other stuff. And the interface is PRISTINE. Perfect. I’ve been into this a while, it is THE TV killer.
Organizing the world’s information didn’t turn out to be an exactly profitable business in itself.. and besides, you look like a bad guy if you don’t offer it for free.
I am looking for TRUE video on demand. If I want to watch “Lost”, I can watch it any time of day or night. If I want to watch “Battlestar Galactica”, without paying the exorbitant price that cable charges. I don’t have cable, mostly because I refuse to pay for channels thatcab I will never watch. I WOULD pay for a la carte cable, but the cable companies won’t give that option, because they wouldn’t make enough money that way.
That’s my 2 cents.
@7 I wear it outside because it’s slimming and I get attention. Duh.
@8 Thanks for the tip. Trying to get it to work.
Nutcheese- appreciate the gas report. Chowder (a kids show) has a pet fart.
@11 I feel like there’s good money in on-demand if the show owners don’t have to dole out a piece to the middlemen.
BTW- I don’t think this will be a huge source of revenue for most of us. Remember- I’ve sold about 20 copies of my DVD at the most. Maybe some of my videos- but few. But it does encourage posting of full episodes- especially of old shows like Alf.
I got nothing or I’m just tired.
Al Gore’s Google, we should change the name of the country to Google.
There’s nothing I need to see right now… thinking… nope. Nothing I need to see now that I can’t wait for. Took me three years after it started to watch the Sopranos, so I can wait for the library, yeah the library. I wish I knew where people found the time to watch TV.
I don’t have ITune either, what do I need it for? IMO real good stuff is done independently anyway. I got rid of cable TV when You TUbe popped up because all the shows I actually do like (mostly news) are online without commercials and I read.
I think if anything concerns me about the future of online, cost and information wise, it’s net neutrality. As long as the net stays neutral I have more than enough to do see and do – how do you people find the time?
Well there is this puppy, but it doesn’t like Mac.
http://www.tinyurl.com/verismo
Peter is right Kevin..BoxeeTV is the best! Hang on to that AppleTV!
HEY ALL HAVE DIFFRENT OPINION I AGREE TO YOU ALL SO BE HAPPY SEE MOVIES ON TV
@13
That was not a puppy.
Sorry to be a drag…
Thoughts and prayers for the crew, passengers and family involved in that Buffalo crash.
It was interesting to see news programs showing clips from YouTube before their own reporters could get to the scene.
GoogleTV? I’d buy it.
nalts nalts! write a blog about DailyBooth.com. it just launched and everyone is getting one! go go
u need one. as soon as you get one i’ll follow u. mwahahahha
This just in: morphine is FUCKIN’GREAT!! I love it!! No more brain surgery for me, though (pictures available upon request). The V.A. doctors peeled my face half off. Now they have me wearing a head wrap that looks like a 1930’s toothache commercial (print ads).
I spent the last few days in a V.A. bed getting Valentines cards from high school kids, active duty Army soldiers, Shreveport civic organizations and Legionnaires. Oh, and some Mardi Gras partiers (the parade was just outside my hospital room window).
15 minutes after being discharged tonight, I was jumping out of a moving truck on IH20 headed to Marshall screaming bloody murder and curses at an 84 year-old evangelist.
What I’m trying to say is: Youtube is offering a new pay-for-download service? I don’t give a squat. But thanks for keeping me up to date on what the corporate jerkoffs are doing to counter pornography’s online market share.
@^ Glad to see that you came through the surgery okay. Did you at least get them to pull a couple wrinkles out of your forehead? Morphine is great for killing the pain associated with truckjumping!
awesome! that guy is one crazy MoFo.
The V.A. gave me a musical bong to take home. They call it an anti-static valved holding chamber, the AeroChamber Plus® ZStat™ with FLOWSIGnal® for use with my metered dose inhaler, but basically it’s a government issue musical bong. I play it 4 times a day.
@21
Thanks Jimmer. No, the wrinkles are still there and now my head/face is lopsided. I told one of my nurses during a percoset stupor that this is NOT the face I came in with. She cackled like only Louisianans can do.
My surgeons, Dr Yu and Dr Can (no shit and I think they are coital) came in and bragged that my tumor was deeply involved in ALL my facial nerve clusters and paratid gland and that they enjoyed the intriguing challenge of rerouting my wiring. I guess they get extra points for challenging shit. They seemed happy.
I told them that what they do is so above my ability to comprehend that it’s like magic. I’ll bet THAT made them horny. I’ll bet they went off and humped like rabbits, singing “We are the magic makers, who do the voodoo of the 21st century!”
I’ll bet they did…..in their own way, I mean.
The truck-jumping incident on Interstate 20 is a whole other story. I’ll bet I looked funny limping along the side of a dark Louisiana freeway all bandaged up like a car wreck survivor who had jumped out of an ambulance. Nobody picked me up. Bastards! People are bastards.
Marquis- sorry to hear about that (seriously), but even sorrier that I don’t see footage of it. Save some morphine for mama.
^ Momma would just deliver the morphine to my addict sister, no matter how much pain it caused me.
Footage. Yeah. I’m getting out of the footage game.
🙂
@24 holy crap! and no video? that’s way better than Kevin’s pee bag – kidding… why didn’t you say something before you went in? don’t you like us round here? and why on earth did you go home so soon? the hospital couldn’t be worse than home. honestly, I think you do this cause you like to scare us.
@27
I wish to God I’d had enough sense to stay in 3 or 4 more days. They would’ve let me, but I just HAD to get home before that ignorant ratfuck I live with killed my dog. I love that dog. The state should just put my mom to sleep. Seriously. Put the old bitch down. They’d be doing her (and me) a favor.
I’ve talked about my tumor(s) a lot in the last 6-8 months. I thought I talked here. Wait, didn’t Kevin post a blog about my surgeries here? Yes he did.
Anyway, here’s the latest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsbBwDYDYz8&fmt=18
One of the V.A. surgeons who cut open my head said, right before they put me under, that I was racing 120 mph straight at a brick wall and that brick wall was probably on this year’s calendar.
Nothing like socialized medicine’s bedside manner, is there?
jischinger,
I have proof positive that no one here gives a rat’s ass about me. It’s logic. If they did, they’d be at least curious about why I had to jump out of a moving pickup truck on the freeway coming home from my head surgery. They would. Irrefutable logic.
I ain’t saying I’m surprised. For all its “community” hype, the internet is a bone-cold soulless place. Happy President’s Day.
Well I put in my application to be in this program. I hope I get invited, although I don’t think many people will opt to pay to download when they can rip for free. That is why I chose the option for free download.
@30 yup, you scare me and keep scaring me, but for the most part you’re probably right, which is a shame, I haven’t decided completely yet.
the end is nigh
If my fever doesn’t break soon, the end is VERY nigh!