And better than YouTube too.
There seem to be a zillion Internet video archive sites these days which means it’s pretty hard for any single one to stand out.
Just when I thought I’d seen it all, along comes…
Guba.
Here’s what Guba’s got that nobody else does.
1. An excellent interface including search capacity – and very fast servers
PLUS
2. Over 20,000 hours of high quality videos including lots of material from HBO and other sources people are used to paying good money to watch.
Each video is presented in a wide variety of formats including Flash and formatted for download to an iPod or Sony’s PSP.
There are a couple of odd things about this site too:
1. It offers of lots of copyrighted programs that doubt they have rights to. Episodes of “The Sopranos” for example.
2. The company claims that they’ve been around for years, have thousands of members and are profitable.
These two items had me scratching my head .
How could I not have heard of these guys?
How did they build up such a big following of paying customers when everyone else is giving it away?
How did they gather all this phenomenal content?
A little digging revealed the answer…
Guba’s current shiny family-friendly public face is a NEW development.
The subscriber base, the money, and the better-than-average technology all come from their ORIGINAL business…
Helping Internet users find photo and video on Usenet in the murky world of alt.binaries.
Usenet was – and is – a discussion system created by two grad students at Duke University in 1979. Before the web, it’s where most people who used the Internet hung out.
You might have heard the term “newsgroup.”
Newsgroups were essentially discussion boards on every topic under the sun – including a huge number devoted to sharing – you’ve probably guessed by now – po-rn.
It’s no secret that the po-rn world has been serving video files in huge volume for many, many years before the recent explosion in Internet video.
Guba’s made the decision to join in the much bigger consumer party.
Just to be clear….
The current incarnation of Guba.com site is squeaky clean and I think you’ll be surprised by how much great stuff is on it and how easy it is to use.
Can Guba continue to do what they’re doing without getting heat from the copyright owners?
Who knows, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying it.
They call themselves “the premier multimedia search and download site” and, by George, I think they’ve earned it.
Enjoy!
P.S. Let your friends know about the
Internet Video Marketing Letter.
They’ll thank you for it!
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.
If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.
Ken,
If you’re such a video expert… why don’t we ever see any videos by you… all you do is talk about what other people do.
Freddie
He does have videos!
http://www.AskaGrad.com
J –
Thanks for responding.
And gee whiz Freddie, look here…
http://www.systemvideoblog.com/2006/03/home_movies_fro.html
A video I made in 1994 and it’s on the Internet… and it’s mentioned on this blog… and in this video TWELVE YEARS ago, I talk about practical ways to use video on the Internet.
Yeah, I guess I’m just jumping on the bandwagon empty-handed. Thanks for setting the record straight. 🙂
(I wonder why it’s so hard for certain people to do even the most basic research before they shoot their mouths off and disparage other people’s work?)
Anyway, now that that’s cleared up maybe someone would like to talk about Guba.
One thing that may not have been clear from the article is there is a whole world of people who post video to Usenet groups. This has been going on for a long, long time.
Guba’s doing a very smart thing by going mainstream with their technology. I wish them well.
Ken
Ken,
Thanks again for remininding us that all new is old and all old is new.
Usenet traffic used to account for the bulk of internet traffic, because it was an automated system of delivering large larges around the net.
This has been superceded by BitTorrent traffic.
BitTorrent traffic solves the problem of overloaded servers by turning swarms of downloaders into swarms of uploaders whenever they are downloading a large file. BitTorrent downloading programs automatically offer pieces of file which they have downloaded to other computers. A central computer maintains the list of which computers are currently downloading. It’s a fascinating piece of technology, and it’s most appropriate for video where user has a personal passion in, and doesn’t mind sharing his bandwidth so others could share the same content.
Chui
ps. Saw your talking head show. Readers who want to try this should also have a look at Izzy’s video podcasts on shooting videos. Lots of info on lighting, cut on moves, shot selection et. c
Hello Ken I want to thank you
the first videos I looked at were the
vintage cartoons nothing special
but when I went to sports and found martial arts and Bruce Lee WOW what a treat.
Im still looking at one now its very long and informative.I use to compete in Chicago
in the late 70’s
Thanks again.
Chui,
Thanks for the suggestions and the mention of BitTorrent. If you can point us to any resources about it that’d be great.
I flunked peer-to-peer in Internet school 🙂
In the meantime, here’s something I found on WikiPedia about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent
You’re right. No discussion of Internet video is complete without addressing BitTorrent.
About Guba… to everyone. Keep fooling around with it. There’s a ton of stuff there. Mostly TV material, but good stuff.
Speak of the devil…
Warner Brothers just announced they’re going to distribute some of their movies via BitTorrent.
http://bittorrent.com/
Here’s the story:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/09/warner-brothers-bittorrent-cx_po_0509autofacescan06.html
Hi Ken, seems you were right about guba not having the rights to shows like the sopranos they’ve pulled them all off the site.I managed to watch two of the shows before they dissapered.thanks for the link and all the great info you’ve sent me for the last few years! all the best to ya!