Let me start out by apologizing for having two Godfather themed postings this week already.

Last week, I reported the rumor that Metacafe might be acquired by a group of networks. This week, we have the Wall Street Journal reporting that News Corp., Viacom, CBS Corp. and NBC Universal are discussing the possibility of building their own YouTube competitor. Are the two stories connected? I don't know.


Anyway, I read the WSJ article and see the four families are sitting around a big table, trying to "create a Web site that would be the official destination for video content from their respective TV studio networks. They have also discussed building a Web video player that could play video clips from across the Web."

It appears that a fifth family (Walt Disney) is conspicuously missing from the talks. They said that they wanted no part of the heroin business to rely on their own resources to get Disney content out.

Some naysayers are already saying that since YouTube has 23 million unique visitors the networks will have a difficult time. It's as if GoogTube owned them or something. (They don't, right?) I point out that the term 'visitor' refers to someone who is temporarily at a location and then leaves. Web surfers tend to go where they want and there are many precedents to show how fast their preferences can change. Facebook anyone?

Ross Fadner at Online Media Daily goes on to say that "web surfers want to go to one comprehensive Web video destination to get content. Additionally, advertisers want that, too, so that place is YouTube." I guess if you drink the YouTube is King kool-aid long enough, you end up saying stuff like "it will be a tall order for the networks to create a site that's as intuitive and easy to use as YouTube; and since users don't actually want to pay, they'll be bombarded by advertising." Hey, Ross, do you know that Google plans on putting advertising in also?

One thing that is totally missing from the discussion is that the most sought after content on YouTube are pirated clips from network television shows. Therefore, the networks can keep suing Google until the cows come home. (note to self: make a video clip of a cow coming home to Mountain View). Even if the pirated clips go elsewhere, that means that they will no longer be on YouTube and web surfers can just as easily learn to go to the legit site.

I am not saying that the networks will pull this off correctly. However, pundits should realize that no destination owns the web surfer and if content owners make a better value proposition, they will win. Another thing to remember is that Google is not infallible and the Google name does not protect YouTube from the Millennium Act. There, I said it and am still alive to post this article!