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MySpace defeats YouTube in war game

Which business model is likely to be the most successful: MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, or Second Life?

According to a war game played out at London's Business School last week, MySpace wins. But, in a conclusion that was validated by this week's Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube for copyright infringement, the participants concluded that both MySpace and YouTube are vulnerable to legal attacks and government regulations that target illegal activities and objectionable content, such as child pedophilia and pornography.

Copyright lawsuits will be a "major distraction at best or they could undermine" the businesses, says Leonard Fuld, president of Boston-based Fuld & Co., which ran the war game. "Sexy and cool as MySpace and YouTube seem, they are prone to attacks."

Meanwhile, the team of students representing MySpace successfully convinced the panel of experts who judged the war game that MySpace has the most viable business strategy among the social network sites. "MySpace won the game by a fairly good margin. They had a much better argument: that content is king," Fuld says. "MySpace won the strategy event...whether it will win the war" is unclear. … Read more

Vlip launches

Vlogging social network Vlip launched this morning, providing users with a way to record and share video messages with others using their Webcams. Vlip has incorporated a system similar to YouTube's, allowing Vlip users to post a video response to another user's video. Both the video and its responses can be viewed from embedded Vlip clips on social networking profiles, blogs, and Web sites (similar to the dynamically updating embeds on SplashCast and Searchles.) Posting and browsing the site requires no registration.

What's also neat is the ability to add a response from any embed on other … Read more

News Roundup: March Madness on YouTube, Google privacy, and SkypeFind

NCAA tournament clips on YouTube. Just because Viacom has gone lawsuit-happy with YouTube, that doesn't mean CBS wants to keep its content off Google's video-hosting service. CBS will be adding highlights, press conferences and specials available "immediately" following live TV coverage. YouTube users will also be able to vote on and rank their favorite game clips.

Google adding search privacy protections. Google will be "anonymizing" search queries connected to your IP address and browser cookies about 18 to 24 months after they were created. Currently, all three pieces of information are grouped together and … Read more

New Google Talk module better than desktop app

Google has released a new module to use on its personalized homepage that retains the look and feel of its Windows-only installable chat application, Google Talk. What's interesting is that the Web-based version ends up having a few extra features you don't get with the desktop client. For instance, starting a conversation with a contact creates a new tab on the top of the interface. You can jump through these like tabs on a Web browser. It's far better system than the Google Talk application, which uses expandable horizontal bars like Microsoft Outlook.

There's also a … Read more

News Roundup: Viacom sues YouTube, MySpace News screens leaked, Microsoft to buy Tellme

Viacom drops $1 billion lawsuit on YouTube. The news came this morning that Viacom is suing Google-owned YouTube for "massive intentional copyright infringement." The suit is due to the repeated viewing of almost 160,000 clips of Viacom-owned content that were hosted on the service. It was only a matter of time before the big lawsuits came from content providers after Google's acquisition of YouTube late last year. It's worth noting that the lawsuit amount is more than half of what Google paid for YouTube in stock in November. ( CNET News.com)

Shots of MySpace News surface. … Read more

Searchles TV: Multivideo embed tool

Searchles, the social network that launched last June, has rolled out a new feature called Searchles TV, which lets you combine multiple clips from multiple services to share elsewhere in an embeddable player. Similar to SplashCast (see previous coverage), you can jog back and forth between clips without leaving the player. Searchles works with videos from YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Grouper and Blip.tv, and plans to add more partners in the future.

What's neat about Searchles TV is that embedded players will reflect any changes you make to the master feed. SplashCast does this too, and it works … Read more

MyPunchBowl adds RSVPs, YouTube integration

MyPunchBowl, the party planning service I covered in January, has added some neat new features, including publicly viewable RSVPs--one of the few things I griped about. The service has also added YouTube integration to let party goers share videos of the event.

Like competitor Evite, MyPunchBowl's new RSVP options let you see who has been invited, along with whether or not they're coming. You can also turn the visibility of the party's guest list on and off at any time, which is a nice touch if people start nagging you about wanting to see who's coming, … Read more

Ning is surprisingly good

I would be wary to predict a mass exodus from currently popular social networks, but after playing around with Ning in the last few days, I'd say it could easily steal users from MySpace. Ning lets you create your very own social network, with custom branding, forums, photos, and videos. Everything is fully integrated and customizable with really slick looking themes that put less focus on individual user profiles, and more of an emphasis on group sharing and communication.

Compared to MySpace and Facebook, you still get to create and manage an extensive personal profile. The main difference is … Read more

YouTube + BBC partnership

YouTube is now featuring content from the BBC in the form of two new branded channels, one for BBC local programming, and another for popular television programs on their BBC Worldwide network. A channel with daily clips from BBC News is soon to follow. The BBC won't be offering its programming in its entirety, just promotional clips like extra scenes, previews, recaps, and production diaries.

In light of this, I'd like to see the BBC move to something similar to what American networks have been doing, offering full versions of their content on their Web sites with supplemental … Read more