With Google buying YouTube, the buzz around Skype’s Venice Project is somewhat subdued this week. I’m not sure why Mark Brooks mentions Great Expectations in the same post about social videos, but one must agree that the definition of television is rapidly shifting as social media sites like YouTube siphon viewers away from the television.
Skype Journal has the details, going back a few months. Why eBay/Skype is misdirecting resources into the Venice Project is not entirely clear. They have a lot of work to do on the client and integrating with eBay, why the rush into being a video portal? I don’t see this going anywhere soon. More at BusinessWeek.
It’s become clear that dating sites need to bring a higher level of interaction to members. People don’t date on dating sites, they send IM and emails back and forth. That is not dating. Video profiles are much richer in emotive bandwidth, but nobody used them in the past because not enough people have webcams. Flash-based video recorders are a dime a dozen these days, from Userplane to Flixn, so why bother with Skype?
There are tons of personal video ads on Google Video and YouTube already. I don’t see Skype getting more than a few percent of the video sharing market. Certainly less than Google, which has been trounced by Myspace video and YouTube.
A commenter was concerned about the Venice Project Terms of Service, equating Kazza’s file-sharing spyware with the potential for Venice Project spywear. To clarify, Kazza was built on the Skype founders technology, they did not have anything to do with installing spyware. Of course they gather that information, nothing scary about that.
Mate1 appears to be the primary dating advertiser on YouTube. I wonder if True is going to redirect funds towards marketing on YouTube now that it has saturated Myspace?
