The Real Problem For YouTube

Everyone assumed that when Viacom demanded that YouTube take down 100,000 clips of Viacom content, it was just a hardball negotiating tactic…but maybe it wasn’t. What if Viacom suddenly realized that they don’t need YouTube.

I went to ComedyCentral.com, and thanks to a recently introduced embedding feature, here I am with a Comedy Central clip on my blog. Isn’t that a huge part of YouTube’s appeal?

So maybe I don’t have full access to all Comedy Central shows, and I can’t edit the clips, but give Viacom some time. They’re just getting started.

If I were YouTube, I’d think long and hard about a business model based on cats flushing toilets and flatulence flambe. Anyone with any kind of professional interest in their video content will soon realize that YouTube’s platform is increasingly a comodity, and that if your content is 1) really good, and 2) embedable, you’re pretty much good to go, regardless of which platform you use.

If YouTube hopes to keep any of these professional video creators (broadly defined) on their platform, they better get moving with that revenue sharing, and it better be a NICE share.