If you were wondering if you YouTube could figure out a business model, stop wondering. The business is model is simple: imitate Hulu. But be 100-plus times bigger. YouTube signed deals to carry professional content from major Hollywood studios including Sony, MGM and Lions Gate, according to the New York Times. The story also says YouTube may start charging for premium content.
There are three key takeaways from this story.
What do you think?
Get a Trackback link
4 Comments
Sounds like a good idea. While I like the Hulu service competition is always good. And I would like to see the quality of YouTube rise up a little, when it’s a production. Hand held video is fine, but in a ‘production’ environment it looks rather … lame. I think it will be an interesting experiment.
I have heard that YouTube may lose $500 million this year so there is no doubt they are moving towards premium content and will surround it with micro payments for pay per view, subscriptions, and similar ad formats (choose your “favorite” pre-roll) seen on Hulu.
The re-branding process is now underway for YouTube and with their penetration rate and audience leverage they will be hard to stop.
“User pay” for premium content will be tough. There seems to be a disconnect for people when it comes to paying on the internet, the overwhelming majority seem to think that they deserve content for free. Branded content, where the ads are integrated into the content fits this mindset. If YouTube can change this behaviour then I may applaud them.
G
Thanks to higher download speeds, the internets are finally in a position to challenge cable companies for customers. So yes, I would pay for awesome content on Hulu or YouTube or DaisyWhitney.Com, but to afford it I would drop my cable subscription. I understand that cable companies are often internet service providers, but the cable companies are so awful that there’s a psychological difference, even if there’s not a technical difference, to my mind at least.
Maybe we’ll see the reemergence of small, local ISPs who provide great content packages and good service without the big cable operator rip-offs.
I would never pay for YouTube, however. Their quality is so awful.
Leave a comment