HERE WE GO AGAIN...
If the title of this post sounds familiar to some, it's because I used the headline for another post back in March on a Tivo deal with Verizon Wireless. This time it's to comment on this New York Times story, which explains the deal as follows:
"YouTube is coming to mobile phones — or, to be more precise, a small slice of YouTube is coming to some Verizon Wireless phones.
While its explosively popular Web site is free, YouTube’s phone-based version will require a $15-a-month subscription to a Verizon Wireless service called VCast. And instead of choosing what to watch from a vast library of clips, VCast users will be limited to an unspecified number of videos selected and approved by the companies."
I'd get more excited about this IF Verizon wasn't trying to charge a monthly subscription charge here as they did with the Tivo deal in March ($5/month in that case). As I'd said back in March,
"Imagine if every feature and function of your PC had a specific a la carte charge attached to it, courtesy of Microsoft, Intel, and/or the PC vendor like Dell and others. It'd be a very different world indeed."
So I'll paraphrase again from my earlier post:
"You sometimes wonder why companies like
TivoYouTube even bothers expending the time, energy and resources to craft such partnerships. Most of these high-priced services are stillborn from the very start for ordinary, mainstream customers. They make for great press releases and little else."
This deal shows a little desperation on VZ and YT's end.
How come? VZ is trying desperately to get ahead in the mobile phone streaming video market where companies such as ampdmobile have taken quite a lead and YT faced with recent removal of 1000s of videos is looking for another one to make money.
15$ subscription for stuff you can get free? That's ridiculous, I don't know anyone who can't control their urge to watch videos and will need to have a mobile subscription, especially at that high rate.
Posted by: Yaser Anwar | Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 04:44 AM