Might MySpace cut off links to YouTube?

Filed in archive Internet TV on October 11, 2006

no, on second thought, send in the lawyers!

MySpace and YouTube are now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Google, respectively. So much for the theory that 'Web 2.0' is about small companies.


Forbes pointed out that "depending on whom you ask, MySpace already pushes out more video clips per month ... 1.46 billion video streams in the U.S. in July, compared with 812 million streams at Yahoo! and 649 million at YouTube."

If you think about it, the sites aren't dissimilar. Both let users upload video and share it with just about anyone who cares to find it. So how does the empire er, MySpace fight back now that Google bought YouTube?

One rumor floating around is that MySpace might disable the enemy; that is, prevent YouTube video from being played on MySpace user pages.

It's hard to overstate just how stupid such a move would be. As a result, me thinks that MySpace would not do that. But just in case it really is being contemplated, let me through my 2-cents in.

MySpace users would not accept that type of walled garden. The very nature of social networking is that the users are in control. Even the mighty AOL could not wall off their subscribers forever. The most likely outcome would be that users would abandon MySpace, not YouTube. After all, there are other social networking sites. Google itself runs one, Orkut - which, I am told, is very popular in Brazil.

Maybe a more tactical move would be for Rupert to hire an army of attack lawyers, wait for more Fox content to show up on YouTube, and sue the bastards into submission. Then, he can strike some sort of deal with the Googleplex that benefits MySpace handsomely. There must be issues to exploit, afterall, Google does have an existing search deal MySpace and both parties want to make a lot more money from online advertising.

Tim Armstrong, Google VP of Ad Sales, will have a meeting with Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn this week to discuss new ways of working together. Let's see if any news is made.