npr day part deux

There was a brief report on NPR’s Morning Edition about Fox, Viacom, CBS and NBC talking together about creating an alternative to the popular YouTube. The headline on NPR’s web site really says it all, 'Old Media Companies Plot to Compete with YouTube.' See my comments earlier today about media companies and the need for innovation.

What strikes me is the 'copycat' nature of their approach. Instead of working to understand why sites like YouTube and Threadless work and building on that approach, these companies are going to 'compete.' While I have not seen what will emerge I can only guess, based on the past performance of previous large companies imitating smaller, more nimble companies,that it will be a pale shadow of YouTube. What these four companies should be doing is trying to figure out what their competitive advantage is for the net; hint, content; and how to package it and repurpose it for their consumers. Time will tell.