MySpace unveils YouTube equivalent, founders demand more $
MySpace is unveiling an independent Web site, MySpace TV tomorrow that people can visit to share and watch video, even if they have not signed up for MySpace — the company’s latest effort to go after YouTube’s top-dog status in video.
The site will offer new ways for members of MySpace to more easily integrate the videos they create and watch into their personal profiles, according to the NYT.
It will emphasize professional video — five minutes or longer — and also feature content owned by News Corp.’s other media properties, and by partners such as Sony. Later this year, MySpace plans to let users edit and combine videos on MySpace TV into new clips — using technology from Flektor, a start-up it just acquired.
Co-founder Chris DeWolfe tells the NYT that few have noticed that MySpace “has been focused on video and has quietly come within striking distance of YouTube.”
This comes as YouTube is working to build in more social networking features, so that it doesn’t lose ground to MySpace or Facebook — both fast-growing networking sites with video. YouTube is offering new tools allowing users to chat while they watch the same clip and share their favorite videos.
Meanwhile, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson (pictured above) have made a very aggressive compensation demand, according to Deadline Hollywood Daily:
…(some would term it rather fanciful) compensation proposal to owner News Corp for when their contract is up in October. They’re asking Peter Chernin and Rupert Murdoch for a 2-year deal worth $50 million total. That comes out to $25 million each, or $12.5 million a year. Plus, the pair want a development fund of $15 million to invest in internet companies.”
It’s well known the ownership stakes of the two founders were watered down significantly by the time MySpace was acquired by News Corp. They’re likely hoping for restitution, given the subsequent raging success of their creation.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
