YouTube Will Have TV Shows Soon: Could Be Interesting...

Have you heard about this? YouTube is about to unveil a section where you will be able to watch actual TV shows and feature films. They're doing this because of the increasing popularity of Hulu, which is eating into the massive numbers of views that are generated by the biggest kid on the block, YouTube.

Hulu is new and owned by News Corp and NBC Universal and has a huge library of TV shows and movies available. And the ever-hungry Disney Corp is angling for a stake in Hulu so they could be allowing Disney-produced movies and TV shows (more Hanna Montana dreck anyone?). Hulu is growing by leaps and bounds and may eventually overtake YouTube if they get the mix right for viewers and advertisers. And that's the rub for YouTube. This new section for YouTube is an interesting spin, and with a little work could turn YouTube into the money-spinner the Googlemeisters were looking for. Still too many details need to be ironed out.

Advertisers are the pot o' gold Google (who purchased YouTube for a sackful of money in 2006) are after. They love the numbers for YouTube (5.3 million views in February), but enticing the wary adboys to part with their dollars is the hard part. Would you advertise with a company that seems to air mostly kids showin' off their hot skateboard tricks and flips? Of course, that's not all there is to YouTube. I love YouTube because of the old trailers and movie and sports clips available. But if you can provide longer clips of movies or television episodes, there's a boatload of dollars waiting for the guys who put it all together with the advertisers.

Almost makes me want to dust off my old YouTube-ish idea about providing clips with subtle ads interspersed (No, not subliminally, you dork). What's needed is a platform that provides the good visual content and with ads featured alongside that content. The advertising has to be unobtrusive and non-distracting. Hmmm... maybe I should put in a call to Google boys with my brilliant idea.

You heard it here at Tube Squad first. I just have to do a little legwork and maybe I'll get a sliver of the revenue or maybe I'll just start a new website (maybe I'll call it "Tube Squad"!) and then sell it to Google and retire to a tropical island. Dare to dream.