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MySpace TV: A Better YouTube Competitor?

by Terrence O'Brien on June 27, 2007 at 03:15 PM



In a bid to better compete with YouTube for the eyes and ears of Web users (but not in a creepy, serial killer kind of way), MySpace is re-launching the less than impressive video component of its site. Tomorrow, MySpace Videos will be torn down like the Stardust Casino to be resurrected as a separate site, MySpace TV.

The most important change, other than the new URL, is that you no longer have to be a member of MySpace to share and watch video. Another update changes how video is integrated into the pages of MySpace members. A user's video will now be stored on a separate MySpace TV channel, which the user will have the ability to customize (to death) to match his or her MySpace page. The third shift is that MySpace TV will put much more focus on professionally produced content (though user-generated content will still be there), such as the five minute Webisodes of '80s sitcoms MySpace began hosting through an exclusive partnership with Sony. As the newly adopted son of Rupert Murdoch and the Fox Corporation, MySpace is also already trumpeting the new site's respect for copyright in order to position itself as an attractive alternative to YouTube for major media companies. Finally, later this year, the company will introduce online editing tools, just as YouTube did very recently.

Meanwhile, as MySpace tinkers with video to compete with YouTube, YouTube is playing around with social networking with the hopes of taking a bite out of MySpace. On YouTube's "Test Tube" product development page, users can now share their favorite videos and even chat while they watch the same clip.

And round and round we go. It'll be interesting to see if these two massive online destinations will co-exist as the Coke and Pepsi of the Internet, or if things will turn sour. As of now, you can still embed YouTube videos in MySpace pages -- but how long is that going to be allowed, especially once Google starts piping advertisements into YouTube vids? Let's not forget the spat back in April in which MySpace blocked all content users embedded on their pages from the photo- and video-sharing site, Photobucket. This, after Photobucket sponsors began showing up in slideshows hosted on MySpace pages. Of course, MySpace went on to absorb Photobucket for lots and lots of money, which only raises more questions. For example, will Photobucket images now be blocked on Facebook, a MySpace competitor?

Only time will tell.

From The New York Times

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Tags: fox, myspace, myspacetv, news corp, NewsCorp, social, video, youtube

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