YouTube nod to MySpace: Paris Hilton is YouTube's newest friend
Hilton declares at YouTube: “Hey YouTubers, YouTube is the hottest community on the Web and that is where I want to be…promoting my new album!”
Hilton is the star of a new dedicated “YouTube Channel”: “The Official Paris Hilton YouTube Channel,” sponsored by Fox’s “Prison Break.”
What is the Paris Hilton "channel" at YouTube?
A dedicated promo tool designed to both foster sales of Paris Hilton records and boost viewership of Fox’s PrisonBreak show. Accordingly, the “Channel” content is “commercials” for Paris Hilton records and the Fox PrisonBreak show. The clips are professionally produced, Hollywood style mainstream promos.
Chad Hurley, YouTube CEO and Co-founder, was cited earlier in the year by Hollywood Reporter:
Not that YouTube will partner with just anyone. Cognizant of the anarchic sensibility pervading viral video, the company wants to be selective in order not to be viewed as a sellout to corporate interests.
’We are moving really cautiously for that reason. We are looking at indie brands, the kind of brands that resonate with our users.
Hilton will undoubtedly resonate with YouTubers, but the slickly packaged commercial fare featured at her “Channel” may also be deemed a “sellout to corporate interests.”
It is notable that YouTube’s new dedicated promo strategy via corporate channels is in collaboration with Fox, owners of MySpace. MySpace has been trying to implement such a dedicated promo strategy for its entertainment properties, and other brand advertisers, via corporate “friends” profiles at MySpace.
MySpace, the Internet’s other highly trafficked, under monetized, low quality user-generated content Web 2.0 star, has been touting such a dedicated corporate promo strategy. In “Monetizing you and your friends: The Social Web seeks social brand dollars” I discuss such efforts:
MySpace and Facebook are commercializing “friendship” through social branding. “At MySpace, brands have member profiles and make friends with other MySpace members. At Facebook, members join Facebook brand groups, just like they join Facebook fraternity or hobby groups, and display brand logos on their personal profiles.
MySpace branded friends strategy has not been sufficient, however, to mark the Fox acquisition a success. MySpace is now relying on Google for its financial viability, as I put forth in “Google: MySpace savior?”
‘In one fell swoop, we have paid for two-thirds of our Internet acquisitions,’ said Peter Chernin, President of News Corporation…(on) the multi-year deal for Google to be the exclusive search and keyword targeted advertising sales provider for Fox Interactive Media Web properties, including MySpace.com.
Listening to the joint conference call for financial analysts and press, however, the lack of enthusiasm for the $900 million deal was palpable. The profitability of MySpace was questioned, as well as the quality and salability of its advertising inventory.
By seeming to use the Google revenue share deal to ‘justify’ its billion dollar plus investments in Web properties, News Corp did not provide a ringing endorsement for the stand alone viability of its Internet sites.