Another Video Site We Don’t Need: AT&T Entertainment
by Peter Kafka
Posted on September 3, 2009 at 10:54 AM PT
There is no shortage of places to watch TV shows free on the Web. There’s a glut of them, really. But here comes another: AT&T Entertainment.
What is it? A TV (and movie) portal that looks more or less like every other TV (and movie) portal on the Web: Hulu, TV.com, Sling.com, Fancast, etc.
The only reason for AT&T (T) to launch its own portal now would be as a placeholder until it launches its own “TV Everywhere” play, where subscribers to its “U-Verse” TV service would get Web access to cable shows. That’s the same strategy that Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Verizon (VZ) and everyone else in the pay TV business is trying.
But while AT&T will likely be doing the same, this site isn’t for that. At least, not according to the note AT&T sent to NewTeeVee, which makes it sound like the company is creating…another free Web TV portal:
We have started a soft launch of a new site called AT&T Entertainment. This site will feature free online content available to any consumer. We’re finalizing a few final elements, and we’ll share more details on our official launch soon.
Allrighty, then. As AT&T says, it’s a soft launch, so maybe when it’s ready for primetime, things will make more sense. But for now it’s a head-scratcher.
One thing that distinguishes AT&T’s site from, say, Hulu: Hulu lets you embed clips from the site on your blog, while AT&T’s site, which relies on Hulu for much of its content, doesn’t. So here’s an awesome, upsetting clip you can see on AT&T’s site, but can only embed by heading to Hulu. Makes sense, right?
Comments
Funniest part of this story is that in going to see the AT&T site, I fired up Season 1 episode of “How I met Your Mother”, and an ad appeared – a Sprint ad comparing the savings over – wait for it- AT&T.
Posted by John Date at September 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pmI can’t help but think that ultimately the winners in these things will be the companies doing the “heavy lifting” of actually hosting the content and providing the bandwidth.
It’s one thing to see some 3-man startup with nothing but embeds to YouTube in their own “unique” page format, but to see a company like AT&T doing it is downright embarrassing (for them).
Of course the AT&T brand has been traded around so much (tempting to make an off-color joke here) that there is nothing left of the original company. I guess us older folk who remember the history should just get over it.
Posted by Mac Beach at September 3rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm