Today’s Media and what’s in store for Tomorrow
Everybody knows one thing. The internet is now the number 1 access to the majority of the public’s media content. Newspaper companies, tv shows, even movies have shifted to a position as online streaming content. What now?
Youtube Executive Jordan Hoffner said, “I think that what we’re doing is we’re dealing with a fragmented world,” Hoffner said. “You can’t just say you’re going to count out any distribution channel and focus on one because audiences are moving to other places. We’re one of the places they’re moving to.”
Like Hoffner describes, audiences are moving to the online world for their main source of media. Take the first part of his comment and dwell on it a bit. “I think that what we’re doing is we’re dealing with a fragmented world”. If you look at media in the online world. You can’t get all of your content from one place. Everything is seperated. First you go onto CNET and check the latest news. Then you go onto Youtube to find the latest releases of amateur videos or just watch your latest favorite. Then you find that you have a couple hours to spare, you want to watch a movie, but where could you find this?
There have been a long list of sites popping up and frequently getting shut down for their streaming and downloading of illegal content. Many different internet sites are beginning to host LEGAL streams of feature films. The amount of films that can be legally watched online at this point can be considered low, but it seems apparent that watching films online could be the next biggest media shift to date.
Youtube is now working to become not only an amateur video sharing site, but is now taking the role with their new Youtube News section as an access to media. Now more recently they’re beginning to work with Sony on becoming a major access to feature films directly on the Youtube site.
read more at – http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10212585-93.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1
Youtube isn’t the only site working on building a respectable collection of feature films for people to stream. Hulu and other major sites have been hosting films for some time now, yet the process to get a numerous collection online will take some time.
Sites like Youtube are trying to break walls with the Hollywood industry to make the shift to online content. In past years copyright issues have occurred with users placing illegal content on the site. In the early days, companies would complain to Youtube and only get the response “We don’t have control over the content being shared by our users”. Nowdays Youtube has shifted their attitude to keeping the site copyright clean.
The next step for them is to eventually gain access to streaming feature length films directly on the site. Companies are hesitant to share their content at the moment, because they don’t want to see their work benefiting sites like Youtube at their own expense. They want benefits on both ends.
The major shift has begun but we’ll have to see in the years ahead if the shift will effectively take place, or if major motion pictures were never designed to be freely streamed.
Right now you can find a few sites that stream some films like:
http://www.hulu.com/movies
http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom
http://crackle.com/
