Is it really a service if people don’t ask for it?
“RedLasso believes we are providing a valuable service to the content producers and the bloggers,” Hayward said.
As a content producer, I am all for explosive distribution and seamless syndication, but I am sick and tired of technologists - and their financier backers - thinking they are doing us a favor by snatching our content and building a business around it.
And that is coming from me, a new media guy who is trying to disrupt traditional media’s economics and business. Mind you, the tables turn on us, as well.
Moreover, if I was Red Lasso, I would not be using the “bloggers love us” argument. That is plain dumb.
I’m a blogger too and yes, it pisses me off that some of the clips I embed - like this one of Manchester United defeating Chelsea on our sports blog - go missing. But the fact is: I don’t see why YouTube or Red Lasso has the privilege of building a business around content that does not belong to them or they don’t have the right to.
And that is coming from me, the executive producer of one of the biggest content producers on YouTube.
All in all, I think this is a case of bad judgment and bad advice. In fact, it’s bad taste. Forget what the PR spinsters are saying: these guys were hoping to get big and maybe even bought before the biggies noticed.
After YouTube, I doubt the media companies would fall for it again.
Content’s value is rising, and thanks to YouTube’s massive success, the end result for companies like Red Lasso is more Napster, and less YouTube.
Ultimately, media owners themselves will be just fine, look at ABC that today announced enabling embeds. Why should Red Lasso be allowed to tell ABC when it can and cannot enable that?
For the record I am not anti-Red Lasso or a Luddite, but call me old-fashioned: if Red Lasso wants our content, they should go through us, not around us.
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