MySpace Video

My understanding is that much of YouTube’s growth has been driven by uptake of YouTube videos on MySpace.  That could be incorrect and certainly YouTube is growing like a weed and not all of the growth can be attributed to MySpace.

But if you look at the second half of December, there was a two week period where the growth flattened out.  That corresponded with MySpace temporarily shutting down YouTube and resulted in my post on the topic.

So when I got an email from MySpace last night announcing that they have launched MySpace video, I figured it would be worth checking out the details of what they have launched.

I uploaded a video to my MySpace account this morning.  It’s still not viewable.  MySpace tells me almost eight hours later that the video status is "processing".  I guess I need to call MySpace "lame" because that’s what I called Google when they pulled that stunt on me last fall. When you upload content to the web, you want to see it instantly.  That’s how this stuff has to work.

Anyway, in need of some instant gratification, I decided to go look at some of the videos that have been uploaded by others on MySpace.  I was told that I had to upgrade to Flash 8.  I did that.  Then went back to look at videos from others.  The video player looks a lot like YouTube’s but I can’t find anything on the web or in blogs to indicate the MySpace licensed their video upload/player technology from someone else.  So I assume its home grown.  In any case, the play button in the middle of the player and the controls at the bottom look a lot like YouTube.

When I get my video "processed" and onto my MySpace page, I’ll link to it and let you know how clean the integration is.  Ideally, it should be much easier to post a video to your MySpace page with MySpace’s own player than with YouTube.

But for now, I still see way more people (including my girls and their friends) using YouTube to post videos on MySpace.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I think that if MySpace gets its video service working well, it could be an issue for YouTube, at least it may slow the amazing ramp its on now.  If MySpace can’t get its video service working, then News Corp may come knocking on the YouTube door, assuming they haven’t already.