14 DAY TRIAL // Babelgum, a small company from Dublin, Ireland, is now looking to challenge Google's YouTube with a similar service that will provide high-quality clips. The product is somehow very different from YouTube because it will be based on a downloadable application that must be installed on the users' computers and that will offer instant access to the clips. It is similar to Joost, a platform recently introduced by the Skype founders that is often regarded as the YouTube killer. At this time, the service is only available as a private beta so, if you want to test it, you have to be invited by a registered member. The owners are planning to offer more than 10000 hours of clips when the product becomes available to the public although it currently has only 1000 hours.
"Erik Lumer, chief executive officer of Babel Networks, which operates Babelgum, said that they want to challenge YouTube by showing quality content. The deal to screen Lee's latest flick is an example of how the company wants to show better quality videos than the "cat playing piano"-type of videos seen on YouTube, he said," AHN reported today.
In the past, a lot of companies developed similar YouTube services that are often presented as the killer of the online video sharing service. For example, the most recently released YouTube threat is Sony's eyeVio, a video sharing service that is currently available only to Japanese users. However, GodTube and ScrewTube also announced their intentions of damaging YouTube by targeting the same segment of users. Every time, the parent company Google replied with a simple move and released a new video channel that is able to attract the same category of users as the ones targeted by other rival solutions.