Guba and Veoh, two companies that have come under heavy criticism are cleaning up their act, hoping to capture a more mainstream users.
Veoh was facing the ire of the video bloggers for taking their content and transcoding their videos into a proprietary format. A day after, the company backed off from the practice and is now seeking permission from the video bloggers. Veoh has removed all the videos they had re-hosted without permission. Dmitry Shaprio, CEO of Veoh wrote to video bloggers group:
we have made a decision to remove any videos published via an RSS feed that have not specifically been claimed by the feed owner. If you have published your feed to Veoh, but have not been able to claim it yet, it has been removed, and we ask you to please republish it. We apologize for the inconvenience, but there was no other way to clean the database.
Guba, a company that puts a web-interface to the Usenet groups has been tainted for giving access to adult content. The company today decided to split its adult content business into a separate unit. Guba, like nearly 90 other companies, is trying to cash in on the “online video hosting and sharing” business. Thomas Mcinerney, co-founder of the service emailed me and said, “We just open up Guba for free. No subscription required. Also, we’ve split adult content into a different brand… we’re expecting Guba to be in the Alexa top 100 inside of 6 months.”
Both the companies are in the process of raising more VC dollars, and I bet there was pressure to clean-up … fast. Veoh, I have heard is in the process of raising capital from some major hitters from the world of media and Hollywood. I will have more details later. Guba is also looking to raise more cash. “We’re talking to VCs now,” says Mcinerney. Guba is close to nailing a deal with a big studio. Perhaps that would nudge up the valuation.
The VC dollars are flying thick-and-fast into the online video business. Earlier today, Revver raised $8.7 million in fresh funding from investors such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Richards, Bessemer Venture Partners and Will Hearst. Last week, You Tube has raised $8 million. JumpCut, Video Egg… oh forget about it… Mike has the lowdown on all the recent entrants in a market that is looking more crowded than an Old Delhi bazaar.
Even as the VC dollars flow into the online video space, just a little reality check: MySpace’s recent launch has already put it ahead of You Tube, though people are not spending as much time watching videos on MySpace.
type the search term “porn” into their site and prepare to be disgusted. no disclaimer, no over 21 disclosure page, etc.
So these clowns want VC money to sell subscriptions to harvest usenet porn?
Web 2.0 bubble, what bubble????
If you want a graphic illustration of just how overcrowded this market is, see my comparison test page on http://www.beginningwithi.com/vlog/test.html (warning – there are so many that the page can take a long time to load!).
There isn’t any porn at all. I just did a search:
No Matches Found for query “porn” in General Videos
I love their interface for browsing media. It’s great to be able to get a montage for a video without having to download the whole thing. Also, getting videos delivered straight to iTunes via RSS is brilliant.
Tainted by adult content? Usenet is built on the back of adult content. Without gay themed Star Trek fan fiction, there would be no Usenet!
Google serves up porn too. Go to Google images, turn off safe mode, and you can find tons of it. The Internet puts information at your fingertips, that’s the whole point. What you search for is up to you. Unless you’d prefer to have George Bush telling you what can you look at, be thankful for that freedom.
You missed one of the older and larger of the standards: I’ve been using AuctionVideo for online flash-based streaming for a few years and owns a few of the patents that power the other guys. You know them as the exclusive provider of all video for eBay.
I cannot click onto the adult content link of Guba anymore. Can you tell me why, and how can I get it again??
why is that theres no videos available today march 20, 2008? no matter how i try to refresh. whats the problem?
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