A recent TechCrunch post informs us that “CBS Is Pretty Damned Excited About YouTube” and discusses the impact that putting “official” CBS videos on YouTube has had on ratings and so forth. It then goes on to talk about the the debate raging at various other networks on whether to follow suit, or to find a “different” online video solution.
Anyway, I clicked through to look at one of the clips CBS has posted on YouTube and from there clicked onwards to the CBS video portal that’s linked in their profile. Based on this 60 second investigation, I can fully appreciate why CBS is “excited” about YouTube, because their *own* video site sucks total balls. Here’s why…
- It’s called “Innertube” Uh… sorry, were you trying to say “Inter-tube” or even “The Inter-tubes” because that actually would have been kind of amusing, to people who stay current on internet stuff.
- It’s all “pretty” in a way that YouTube really isn’t. This just serves to remind me that I’m being “marketed to” and colors my whole experience. (Interestingly, it *isn’t* heavily CBS branded, so what was the point of even building your own portal, if not to draw viewers to you network?)
- It uses REAL-FUCKING-VIDEO for streaming content. So my experience is that I’m all happily clicking away, looking at flash videos on YouTube, and then when I click through to the Innertube site, I have to deal with dumb browser compatibility issues, and crappy controls and all that junk. It’s like going from a sports car to a mini-van and it just serves to remind me of how much I’d rather be watching YouTube
So yeah… I know that networks probably want to put their own “branded” solutions together, so they can get a piece of that sweet advertising pie, and control exactly which clips from their shows are available, but based on my experience here, I’d have to advise them to stick to what they do best (making content) and leave the online presentation to people who aren’t going to totally ruin it. Not to suggest that they shouldn’t negotiate with YouTube for an ad revenue split or anything like that, but the last thing in the world that we need right now are 12 different video sites, each with their own interface and encoding scheme. I mean, the great thing about TV is that I can watch FOX and CBS on the same device, right? It’s hard to fuck that kind of easy compatibility up, but I remain confident that if anyone can do it, it is mainstream media.
(Note: I realize that my remarks above contain a bit of an exaggeration. Obviously there are only 5 major media companies left, so even allowing for blatant mis-management and implementation, we’d probably only end up with 7 or 8 shitty YouTube clones, instead of the 12 that I initially alleged. =)
as for item #2 - i think there has to be a happy medium between cbs overly slick design and youtube’s bare-bones look. flickr for instance, has a great design - it’s very plain and full of whitespace but doesn’t look like it’s been designed by someone whose favorite color is gray.
also, kudos to youtube for trying out the whole css layout thing.
“…designed by someone whose favorite color is gray” made me laugh rice onto my keyboard.
Nice subject and post!