BT has just launched a new service offering both Freeview and a selection of movies with its broadband package. This looks kind of interesting. It's obviously a move on BSkyB - about time, too, since with its acquisition of Easynet BSKyB had started staking out some of BT's territory. It also looks like a canny move against Car Phone Warehouse, which can now offer phones and broadband but not entertainment.
However I think these guys may be missing something. What's been really intriguing about YouTube has been the success of quirky shorts - Grumpy Old Man, a fantastic three minutes of Garrincha (never heard of him? Pele, to the power of five, on speed!), great own goals. These things get links emailed, they get aggregated on other sites, and even the Guardian got into the game a few days ago when one of its sports journalists blogged a few great YouTube selections.
This kind of snackable content is where a lot of the money is going to be. And who owns that? er... Google, which seems to see where the money's going in media, particularly in advertising, with 20/20 foresight.
We'll have to see whether BT can make use of this kind of content. But for all its good words about user-generated content I rather feel BT, like BSkyB, has still got an old style broadcasting model - one to many, however many channels - and it's not 'native to the net'.
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