MySpace launches online video service to challenge YouTube

MySpace, the online social networking site, announced at the weekend that it would launch its own online service for Internet videos and television short stories, in a head-on challenge to YouTube.

The service is called MySpaceTV, and its main goal is to provide a network of home video and professional products. "Our programming comes from everything from professional TV and news videos on NBC and Fox, to hilarious home videos from home cameras, or extreme skiing for athletic teens." "Internet video is exploding right now," MySpace's corporate vice president, Mr. Jaffe, told AFP in an interview.

The site, available at www.myspacetv.com, is still in beta beta and will be available to all users worldwide in seven languages. The site hopes to replicate the success of MySpace in social networking, which has more users in its home market than all of its competitors combined and is the most popular in the world, according to industry statistics.

There is no doubt that the MySpaceTV service is directly aimed at Google's video sharing site YouTube, which in the first quarter of this year,YouTube's share of the domestic Internet video market in the United States reached a terrifying 70%. But the balance of power between MySpace and YouTube has subtly shifted in favor of the former since February, when MySpace launched the online video business it is today, according to web research firm comScore.