IanSchafer.com

It's official, according to this press release. Read all you want, but here are the important takeaways:

There will be a site at the center of all this, but it's unnamed as of yet.

What's the rush in announcing then? Name the thing, hotshots.

AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and MySpace will be the new site's initial distribution partners. The 4 properties have a combined reach of 96% of the internet audience.
This is of no consequence here other than letting us know that those sites are very very big.

Peter Chernin, COO NewsCorp: "…for the first time, consumers will get what they want — professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live."

You left out the "with commercials" part. Now I know people like clips from TV shows and all, but ad-supported clips cut by someone else? I need to see it to believe that mass adoption will take hold. If done right, however, it's certainly possible.

"Each distribution partner will feature the site's content in an embedded player customized with a look and feel consistent with each site, making the offering organic to each destination. The new company will offer innovative advertising sales propositions by being able to sell cross-platform — on-air and on-line."

Read: Lots and lots of pre-roll, and even more of the same :30 spots we're already ignoring on television. I hope there are plans to explore other, more integrated forms of advertising into these players and videos.

What's going to be interesting here is to see how not only Google/YouTube responds, but how the other big media companies not involved in this play respond as well. What does Disney do? What does Time Warner (who currently owns AOL, one of this new site's distribution partners) do?

Any guesses?

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