News: Washington Post writer Sara Kehaulani Goo has written an article titled “YouTube struggles despite dominance.” According to the article, Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research said, “‘I give them a C-minus [in dealmaking]. When you negotiate with a media company, you have to demonstrate respect for their content.” He said YouTube needed to use more sophisticated technology to prevent the unauthorized uploads, which would in turn help foster more trust between YouTube and the media companies. ‘There is software out there — it’s not perfect, but it’s out there.’”
Analysis: I agree there were a few hiccups in the past month with YouTube. Lost deals with CBS and Viacom, plus rumblings from Universal. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt did seem to right the ship by his public comments. And I still think it’s significant no big media content provider has sued YouTube yet. This may be because, as Scott Kessler of Standard & Poor’s said, “If these companies want to distribute their video content online for free or supported by advertising, they need YouTube more than YouTube needs them.”
