A member at the Cre8asite Forums asks the inevitable question: will YouTube, which is succumbing under pressure from several media outlets for publishing videos containing copyrighted material, keep its membership as the videos themselves -- which are behind the success of the site -- start to disappear? If these media outlets were to start their own competing YouTube services, what would happen to YouTube? Did Google make a mistake when they paid $1.65 billion dollars for the service?

Perhaps they did. Search Engine Land reports that News Corporation and NBC Universal are planning to launch a YouTube competitor site this summer.

I wonder if these competition sites will do much for the community of users already addicted to YouTube. There are just so many accounts that people want to have to worry about. While it is understandable that copyrighted works should probably not be on YouTube, how likely are these new competitors going to be successful at gaining and retaining YouTube members given that these competing sites are going to be construed as "just another YouTube?"

There is no doubt that the YouTube idea is huge, since Google bought them for $1.65 billion. NBC and News Corp. understand this and so do other media companies. Barry Schwartz says this "should be fun" watching "new media" play against "old media." Moderator EGOL adds that he is excited to see how traditional media is shifting to these newer technologies, which will be heavily impacted when the United States presidential race gets seriously underway.

Forum discussion continues at Crea8asite Forums.

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