Winners create and innovate, losers litigate and negotiate. While the engineers at Google introduce new technologies for online video, the suits at Microsoft and Viacom just throw money at it.
A $500 million advertising and content partnership between Microsoft and media giant Viacom, announced this morning, has led to some speculation about Viacom’s motives for making the deal: Was Viacom looking to connect with Microsoft, or make a statement to Google?
Maybe it was a little of both. The question is being raised because, as part of the deal, Viacom is switching to Microsoft’s advertising system for its U.S. Web sites and moving away from DoubleClick. That’s the same DoubleClick that Google is seeking to acquire in a deal that appears headed for U.S. approval. And Google is being sued by Viacom for alleged copyright infringement on YouTube, an earlier Google purchase.
Viacom is suing Google and Microsoft just hates Google. They’re just ganging up against their mutual foe through a Short Head ad deal because they can’t compete in the Long Tail like Google does. This alliance is not built on any innovation or practicality, just bile and inertia. Pathetic.
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