Woburn, MA-based web video start-up Gotuit is the latest company trying to capture web viewing traffic. The company launched today its web video portal which, unlike YouTube or Google Video or other video content aggregating sites, is populated by only “professionally” produced video - e.g. video from AP, Reuters or music videos from record companies.
Gotuit is best know for supplying short video content for on-demand viewing to cable operators such as Adelphia and Time Warner. The privately held company is backed by venture firms Highland Capital Partners, Atlas Venture, Motorola and other investors.
Richard McManus of ReadWriteWeb has a good summary of Gotuit’s new web portal, highlighting the benefits (supposedly faster delivery of videos - a conclusion echoed by Mike Arrington at TechCrunch) and the concerns (namely, a very crowded web video marketplace.)
It’s hard to see how Gotuit will gain much traction with its video portal — professionally produced content is splashed all over the web (even here on IPD with our Reuters video link). YouTube, and to a far lesser degree Google Video and all the others, is popular precisely because it has a next-generation, renegade feel about it, a user-to-user flavor that appeals to the group most likely to watch web video: young people.
And established media companies may not like it, but YouTube offers “professionally” produced videos, often of the unauthorized kind. Clips of Daily Show sketches show up routinely on YouTube without Viacom or Comedy Central’s permission, but Viacom looks the other way because of the boost YouTube gives to the channel.
Cynthia Brumfield at 6:24 PM|Comments(0)
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