The net is just seething with speculation and horse-bet predictions in the aftermath of the Google – YouTube buyout which has resulted in more than just a few upset people, including myself of course. Watch this hilarious spoof to see what some people think might happen to YouTube sometime in the near future…
Archive for October, 2006
So, many of you would have heard by now that big bad wolf Google have bought the no. 1 video sharing service YouTube for an estimated $1.65bn. I decided that I was not happy with this acquisition and so I went to rant on Chillibean’s blog:
I was horrified to hear the rumours that Google was planning on acquiring YouTube have finally come true. One of the best things about YouTube was the fact that it was relatively independent of big media interests and that’s what has kept it innovative and somewhat reckless in the online space. Google have known for a while that their own video service was a flop and have therefore decided to smother the market by buying their biggest and best competitor so that they can return the service to ‘Beta’ and enforce Adsense and a proprietary video format on all us happy users who don’t have any alternative. Time will tell how long it takes for Google to screw up another great service, but as long as they have enough money to keep buying up the Internet, no ones best interests are at hand…
Too white and nerdy…
05
Oct
We Own the Internet!
Net neutrality is an issue that is increasingly hotting up in the US within Congress and amongst various stakeholders. In a nutshell, the term refers to the proposed practise of ISPs and telecoms manipulating or blocking Internet traffic based on financial gain or practical/’logistical’ reasons. A new spoof website called We Own the Net gives an amusing account of the telecoms side of the argument… “Who better to provide you with a 21st-century technology than a 19th-century monopoly?”
Here in SA, Net neutrality is way down on the list of priorities after things like Telkom’s strong monopoly and widespread broadband rollout and long waiting lists, but nevertheless it’s bound to feature somewhere down the line and has particular significance for media websites. Take for instance a hypothetical scenario where MWEB, in its capacity as an ISP, gives preferential traffic to 24.com or the M&G Online (which it has financial stakes in) to it’s huge number of subscribers. Preference could be given to these sites in the form of faster access times to value added services such as rich multimedia or through throttling traffic to competitor sites which might turn users away in frustration. Worst yet, they could even charge news providers a ‘fee’ in order to guarantee traffic delivery. As far as I know, MWEB DO NOT DO THIS but without a formal Net neutrality bill, this is always going to be a possibility.
In another scenario, Telkom for instance could decide to sign a content deal with someone like the SABC, which would not doubt drive up their traffic significantly and give Telkom access to exclusive multiple-medium content. This might not be as crazy as it sounds as Telkom have already announced their new IPTV service which will run on their soon to be released 4MB/s backbone, effectively giving them control of the infrastructure and making them a key content provider in direct competition with other media companies who might be wanting to expand into multimedia for example.
DISCLAIMER: This post is not intended to start a conspiracy theory, just to provoke some thought into the matter in the land of the monopoly.
To read more about some of these issues (For and against Net neutrality):
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