Vodpod Blog

Liz Gannes at Newteevee (have you seen what a cool widget they have!) posted an article yesterday that very briefly touched on our new feed service, but led with a quick paragraph about TV Guide, and quoted one of their executives saying this:

“Everybody says, `Who’s going to be the TV Guide of online video?’ and we say, why shouldn’t it be us?” said Richard Cusick, senior vice president of digital media at Gemstar-TV Guide. “We’re making a bet, but we think it’s a safe bet and consistent with our mission.”

That got me thinking, “OK, who is going to be the TV Guide?”

Now, without wanting to sound like that frickin’ Time Person of the Year issue, the answer is US (not us as in vod:pod, but us as in me and you and you). We’re each going to be guides for each other.

That’s what vod:pod is about — when you put a video in your pod, you’re making your own personal guide — maybe it’s useful just for you or your friends, or maybe thousands of people who share your interests, or your tastes will take an interest. We see this happening already, throughout the day, every day, on vod:pod.

Of course, the great thing about the internet (and hyperlinks, and embed codes, and digital media) is that one metaphor is never sufficient, it has to metastasize and grow to really capture what’s happening. And so, because your Pod (your guide) provides access to the programming itself, too, its a channel, or cable network, or movie theater, too. Pick the additional metaphor of your choice.

This is that much more true with the addition of feeds. I now subscribe to several of our “Pod” feeds because I like the taste, or share the interests, of the person curating the collection of video. They’ve become more reliable, more interesting ways to discover programming.

So, you’re now all a guide, you’re now all a network. Get busy, we’re all looking for something to watch.

Or, to use another metaphor (badly, and compounded): to find a pony in there somewhere, in that great big YouTube-Daily-Motion-GoogleVideo-100s-of-others pie of video in the sky.