Also: Amazon's music store | Pirated software | Second Life's real world party | woman&home
YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are unphased by the lawsuits and the rivals, they say, and will launch a video ad platform in the next few months.
The two told said that software to protect copyrighted material is a priority, as they would, and said they want to expand revenue sharing.
"We will be able to reduce the clutter of stuff that people don't even watch on our site," said Hurley.
"That will give us more opportunities to reward the people that are really creating great content for our system."
Those revenue sharing plans include users that post big hitting videos, like the now infamous Coke & Mentos skit. The two also insisted the site would be a hit even if mainstream content was removed.
"What our users want to watch is themselves," he said. "They don't want to watch professionally produced content. There are so many people with cameras that have the opportunity to create their own content and so many more people with editing tools to tell their stories, we feel this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Other plans include sites localised by country, focusing on short-form programming and those much-anticipated video ads, which might mean the site starts to make some serious money at last. Ads will only be shown if a user chooser them, said Hurley. (AP)
Amazon's music store
Amazon is the biggest seller of music CDs in the US, so a new music download store is a logical extension, although it will have to do something quite impressive to take a serious chunk out of Apple's domination of the market with iTunes. As with Apple, some music sold through Amazon's download site will be copyright free and so can be played on any type of device. The store will launch later this year and all the EMI content, as well as a further 12,000 indie tracks, will not be wrapped in rights-management software. Apple announced a similar deal with EMI last month and Universal might be heading in the same direction. (New York Times)
In other EMI news, Warner Music is sniffing round EMI and could be heading for a takeover. EMI has been approached by various private equity firms but Warner would be make more cost savings within the company. (This is Money)
More than a third of all software is pirated
The cost of pirated software rose 15% in 2006 to $40bn, according to the Business Software Alliance. Around 35% of all software is pirated and the alliance is responsible for taking legal action against 25,000 people each year, offering $200,000 for tip-offs. By country, the US does a bit better with only 21%. (FT)
Second Life's real-world party
Design agency Rivers Run Red is holding London's second annual Second Life UK meet-up on 23 June. This is a real-life mingling event for Second Lifers with a few guest appearances, music and an invitation for SLers to submit video work or machinima (that's virtual world mashed-up cinema, for the uninitiated...)
New editor for woman&home site
Pippa Jackson has been taken on by IPC to edit the woman&home site. Jackson was formerly the web producer for the BBC's Eastenders site for five years, and also deputy editor of AOL Europe's Lifestyle channel. Woman & Home is targeted at women over 40+ and jackson will lead development of the site.
