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October 19, 2006
Have Our Cake and Listen To It Too
The purchase of Youtube by Google means one of two things: either YouTube is dead within 15 months, or about two dozen television stations will cease to be within 15 months.
Well, I should qualify that last bit: television stations as we know them now will cease. What is a station, after all, than a set of programming in a specific place? We're used to that place being a number on our cable box, but there's no reason anymore to assume that's the only model. Already within YouTube, users can sign up and select videos to be linked within their profile. Well, that's a station. That's a set of programming in a specific place.
And that type of station has much more potential than what's currently in place.
Within the exception perhaps of HBO, no current station carries through its name only a notion of quality associated with the programming it produces. Certain shows such as "Entourage" and "Deadwood" enjoyed a level of respect before an episode even aired due to shows such as “Six Feet Under” and “The Sopranos”. When a show like “The Comeback” is less than brilliant, people are shocked: c’mon, it’s HBO---aren’t all shows on that amazing?
Other networks have hit shows, and critically acclaimed shows, but very infrequently do networks as an entity receive credit for bringing them to our television sets. People associate success, perhaps, with ABC for having hits shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Lost”, and “Desperate Housewives”, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to loyal viewers of the network itself: merely programming that happens to exist on a particular channel on the cable spectrum.
Most of us like shows on multiple networks: what I create through my DVR, essentially, is The Ryan Network: shows I collect and then watch at my leisure, filtering out any preconceived notion of when I have to watch a show and at what speed. About the only two shows I make sure to watch as they happen now are “Lost” and “Heroes”…the rest I watch as time allows throughout the week. I’m a busy guy. I have things to do, people to see, a life to lead. (I know the thought of me having a life sounds farcical, but please, try and keep the chortling down to a minimum.)
The furthering of that model is inherent in the title of “Youtube” itself: it’s content controlled by you, if not produced by you. It’s about finding what it is you would like to watch, when you would like to watch it. It creates connections you didn’t anticipate, produces clips you didn’t no existed, and puts you in contact with people with likeminded interests….and the latter is where the power lies. It takes the phenomenon of “oh man, you have GOT to see this” to about the millionth power. The water cooler, for better or worse, exists everywhere now. It’s not confined to your workspace, and it’s no longer confined by what the television networks produce. It’s global and increasingly infinite and much, much better than anything you can find on a typical Tuesday night. (Except for “Veronica Mars”. “Veronica” rocks.)
The first station to lose impact, I feel, will be MTV. MTV, if anything, will either have to adopt the YouTube model, partner heavily with YouTube, or just start looking for people to rent out their prime Times Square real estate. Videos are short enough and ubiquitous enough to be the first thing to truly catch on on YouTube. Want to see a video? You could wait for TRL, and hope it’s on, and then see maybe 18 seconds of it, 12 of which are overdubbed by a fat kid giving props to his cousin in Queens, or you can do a quick search on YouTube, find fifteen versions of the video, and fifteen more of people lipsynching to it. I know which one I’m going to use. Hint: it's the one that doesn't force me to watch anything related to Good Charlotte.
And when I find a video I like, I’m also finding other videos of similar interest, posted by people of similar interests, and know what? I am going to trust the opinion of someone who posts five or six videos I really dig a lot more than the shills over at MTV. Now that's a network I can get into, due to one factor: trust, and it’s how money’s going to be made in the future business models online. Whether it be through online news or blogs or music sharing, it’s all about finding that voice, that opinion you trust. It’s not about Katie Couric or Drudge or MTV, but the thousands and thousands of micronetworks that will spring up amongst the thousands that exists right under most people’s noses now. There’s no shortage of content, there’s no shortage of opinion…and best of all? No shortage of channels. The internet’s pretty cool that way.
My “Video of the Day” series is a bit of that micronetwork: it may not be a great channel just yet, but it’s mine, and has value to some people. The people who create the most value to the most people: that’s the new power. It’s shifting evermore towards these smaller, niche networks.
MySpace+YouTube=OurEnjoyment. There’s the equation for the new network.
(And here’s a new addition to my little network. Such a classic.)
(Hat tip to Buzzmachine for a lot of the groundwork/inspiration for this little rambling o' mine...)
Posted by Ryan McGee at October 19, 2006 10:21 PM