p2pnet news view Movies | Advertising:- “In another step in its transformation from an online jumble of amateur videos to a destination for mainstream TV programs and movies, YouTube said Thursday that it had signed deals with Hollywood studios to showcase thousands of TV episodes and hundreds of movies on its Web site.”

So says the New York Times.

Translated, it means: having got hundreds of millions of people around the world thoroughly hooked on You Tube videos, mega advertising agency Google has decided it’s now time to try to CA$H IN.

Says The Inquirer »»»

The Internet overlord posted its first-ever quater-to-quarter revenue drop which it blamed on the recession. Now it thinks it may be able to get people to fork out money they no longer have for junk they’ll find they don’t really need.

Google’s profit for the quarter was up 8.9 per cent, from $1.31 billion to $1.42 billion (£884 million to £959 million), but revenue fell sequentially for the first time since Google went public, down three per cent to $5.51 billion (£3.72 billion).

“The figure is still up six per cent on the first quarter of last year so it’s not all doom and gloom for the outfit that has essentially turned making money out of other people’s stuff something of an art form,” it observes.

No kidding.

And Gargle, “might eventually bring another innovation to the site,” says the NYT: payment for some premium content.

That’s innovation? :dry laugh:

“The agreements with the studios, which include Sony, Lions Gate, MGM and others, are significant because YouTube dominates online video,” says the NYT.

But, “YouTube would continue to embrace content created by users, even if it was not easy to earn revenue from it, because that content was essential to the popularity of the site,” the story has Gogler-in-chief Eric Schmidt saying, also noting, .

“Usage drives revenue opportunities. Usage always comes first at Google.”

But Eric has it ass-backwards.

YouTube will, “continue to embrace content created by users, even if it was not easy to earn revenue,” he says.

Hey, Eric, there wouldn’t be any money without all those user-created videos. Without them, no one would even go to the site.

Or do you really, honestly, believe they give a flying sexual intercourse for  expensive ‘premium content’?

The NYT has ‘former stock analyst’ Phil Leigh saying the outlook for YouTube differs from other social sites, ie, “Twitter and Facebook are entirely new phenomenons, and it’s still not clear if they are going to be Darwinian survivors.”

Darwinian survivors, eh? Good one.

Meanwhile, Goople, Yaroo, Microsloth and all the rest of them, insist on having these heavyweight discussions on how they’re going to score off the Net without even a nod in the direction of the people who make it all happen —-

—- you and I.

That’s because they take it for granted we’ll gulp down whatever they choose to dish up.

Here’s how Glogle spins it »»»

Today we’re excited to announce a new destination for television shows and an improved landing page for movies on YouTube, where partners like Crackle, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate and Starz and many others have made thousands of television episodes and hundreds of movies available for you to watch, comment on, favorite and share. This addition is one of many efforts underway to ensure that we’re offering you all the different kinds of video you want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to music videos and full-length films and TV shows.

To help you navigate through all this great content, we’re introducing two new tabs to the YouTube masthead: the “Shows” tab allows you to browse shows by genre, network, title and popularity, while the “Subscriptions” tab will grant logged-in users one-click access to fresh content from their favorite creators.

While shows and movies are currently limited to users in the US, we look forward to expanding to other regions as soon as possible.

And, it adds, “as with everything we do, we’ll track your usage and feedback to preserve your fundamental YouTube experience while we take these steps to enhance it”.

‘Preserve’ means ’store’ and ‘enhance’ means use your data to target you with ads.

Deep Privacy Invasion, anyone?

New York Times – Deal Brings TV Shows and Movies to YouTube, April 16, 2009
The Inquirer – Pay-per-view heading for YouTube, April 17, 2009