8 ms·
Microsoft responds to YouTube demands, 'more than happy' to include ads
- iamshs 13y agoSweet mother of god, what a move to pull. Well played. Looks like Microsoft is pulling the same hand, as Google did with EAS some months ago. Also considering MS has been asking for Google's help since 2010. Brilliantly done.
- CloudNine 13y agoI wonder if Bill Gates was involved in this idea. He has the level of cunning needed to pull this off. Using Google's pretense of "openness" against itself.
- iamshs 13y agoIt actually is very interesting move to pull. The reply is just so elegant, it is beautiful. They were being strangled by Google, there are no Google apps on MS platforms (WP or OS). And on a day of Larry Page's rheotoric about being friendly to each other. This is Oh Snap moment.
- CloudNine 13y agoWell, the app was released last week or so, Google chose this day to send it(or was it sent earlier and did MS release it only today?).
- mehrzad 13y ago>there are no Google apps on MS platforms (WP or OS) Chrome? Play Music Manager? I guess those don't really count.
- firloop 13y agoPicasa is another example.
- iamshs 13y agoMetro apps. See the new hangouts app? It's not on WP.
- cma 13y agoCan you release a metro app for sale without Microsoft taking a cut? I.e. does windows 8 allow metro sideloading?
- iamshs 13y ago@cma: No. Metro apps cannot be sideloaded if you are not a Dev. Tell me a store which does not take a cut? Steam, iOS, Nook, Amazon, Play store? Besides, Google's apps on iOS are free.
- arjie 13y agoI think AppBrain takes no cut.
- fpgeek 13y agoCan Google release a Metro version of Chrome? One that non-developers can use on Windows RT and/or Windows Phone?
- freehunter 13y agoThey released a iOS version, which has the same restrictions. So yes, they could.
- ebf 13y agoThere's a Google Search app on Win8.
- CloudNine 13y agoDiscussion of Google's takedown notice is here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715168
- DigitalSea 13y agoPerfect example of stacking the deck in your favour. If Google says no, they look like hypocrites who aren't practising what they preach. Very gutsy move Microsoft, well played.
- myko 13y agoNo, it's actually pretty silly of Microsoft. They're blatantly disregarding YouTube's TOS by allowing users to download videos within the app - I'm just shocked this made it past Microsoft legal.
- OGinparadise 13y agoBoth Google and Microsoft are loaded so they can afford lawyers. Even if it goes to trial, my guess is that there are no real /seriou$ damages so the downside is very limited. Upside is attracting attention or the public, regulators and maybe giving Google a bad eye.
- cooldeal 13y agoI believe the conversation would gone like this: Microsoft Legal: No way! We may get sued and lose! Microsoft Strategy: Okay, I see, how much will we lose? Microsoft Legal: Maybe 2 Billion in damages, maybe 5 Billion with a big B in the worst case. Microsoft Strategy: Okay, Finance Department how much cash do we have? Microsoft Finance: 75B billion cash in our bank account. Microsoft Strategy to Dev Division: Okay, make the YouTube app, oh and by the way stick a download button in there too.
- siddboots 13y agoSurely the only people who care about this sort of story are savvy enough to realize that both parties are being petty.
- OGinparadise 13y agoMicrosoft has nothing to lose in this, every mention of this story in the press helps them. They are probably hoping for a lawsuit
- recoiledsnake 13y agoLooks like this submission is getting flagged as well. I guess this story really isn't showing Google is good light if Google fans are in such heavy damage control mode. It looks like they have a veto on what appears on the HN front page. Look, you may not like Microsoft and even its response but why try to bury a legitimate news item? Are there not enough Google I/O posts related stories topping the the front page? Can anyone who flagged this and the other related stories come out and tell us why they feel the need to abuse their moderator privileges? From the HN guidelines: "If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.)" Looks like PG didn't guess that people with good karma will want to abuse it to bury stories they don't want others to see in such a constant way.
- iamshs 13y agoWhat? How is it being flagged? I think the community on here is balanced, and discussions are free of any vitriol.
- recoiledsnake 13y agoThis is a regular occurrence on Microsoft related stories which don't show it in a bad light and anti-Google stories. See #26 on the front page: 26.Where Is .Net Headed? (odetocode.com) 5 points by wubbfindel 44 minutes ago | 1 comment How come that story is on the front page but this one with triple the points and submitted almost at the exact same time isn't? 35. Microsoft responds to YouTube demands, 'more than happy' to include ads (theverge.com) 14 points by CloudNine 48 minutes ago | 9 comments Even benign Surface Pro reviews are flagged by the high-karma Gods, can't have them hurting Chromebook sales. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4849814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4849814
- iamshs 13y agoAh. I get it. I get it. Google data centre post has less points than this one, but is on the main page and so is the .net one, which i guess is anti-MS one. Thank you for the explanation.
- greatergoodguy 13y agoCan google selectively pick which partners will get access to their service? I want to understand the legal answer and the ethical answer.
- venomsnake 13y agoThe legal answer is that the Supreme Court has treated anything written by a corporation on a sheet of paper as a holy scripture (Citizen United, Monsanto, the class action suits waivers) so chances are it will be - they can do whatever they want. The ethical answer is that when a company becomes of a certain size it happens to be a part of the national infrastructure so they should give FRAND access to their services.
- ImprovedSilence 13y agoI've been off all microsoft products for a long time, but I think I might be willing to give their phone a try. I'm not completely sold on android or apple at the moment, and Msoft's design does seem to be taking the lead (flat ui), and presenting a different option . Plus, before the android/ios wars, I always thought Nokia made the most brilliant phones, and i'm kinda glad to see them back in the game.
- arindone 13y agoI absolutely love the Windows Phone and think it's very underrated. I would use one all the time but our company phones are only iPhone or Android =(
- theg2 13y agoI've had a Windows Phone (Lumia 920) for a few months now and probably would never go back. Sure, some apps are missing from the ecosystem, but I rarely use apps so maybe that's just me. The integration, slick performance, and interface really are streets ahead of Android in my opinion and I was a daily android flasher for over 2 years. If apps are your thing though, make sure enough of them are there to keep you happy.
- blub 13y agoIf you want a phone that syncs your data to the cloud without your permission, WP is perfect. Android's also very good at this, but if you have lots of time and some skills you can root it and probably fix the issue.
- Gmo 13y agoNo it's not. I have a Lumia 920 and none of my data is synced to SkyDrive.
- blub 13y agoI see. Are you absolutely sure? Did you do anything special? The only hack that I know is setting the server to 127.0.0.1 in the people hub so that it doesn't sync. I have seen multiple official statements from MS that this is not supported and the syncing is mandatory. Could you provide a link or guide on how to disable sync'ing in MS Office and for the contacts? Thanks.
- cooldeal 13y agoFrom Google's About page: "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube): "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone". Also, I see this post being flagged a lot, stay classy, Google fans on HN.
- cbhl 13y agoI imagine that there is a great deal of YouTube content which Google is obligated to revenue share advertising money on (Vevo music videos, among other content) -- Google can't fulfill those obligations if those videos are showing up on WinMo without ads. Today's remarks about XMPP interop from Page really bother me. In the late 90s, Microsoft was the vendor that wanted interop/federation (on MSN) and nobody took them up on it either.
- feduphacker 13y agoGoogle is the new Microsoft. All this "Don't do evil" bullshit is just another illusion to sell more ads. That's all Google has ever been and ever will be. A fucking Ad company. Over 97% of their revenues prove that. If they can't plaster ads on your shit and sell your data, expect a nice big blue, red, yellow and green fuck you.
- corresation 13y agoMicrosofts openness about MSN was because they were the underdogs. As they gained users their desire for openness evaporated.
- ulber 13y ago>Google can't fulfill those obligations if those videos are showing up on WinMo without ads. The mobile YouTube site that Google serves to Windows Phone devices does not display any ads. Therefore an ad-free app for WP does nothing to change the situation that WP users don't see ads on YouTube. Now, it is possible that some of Google's content is licensed in such a way that only their mobile site is exempt from displaying ads while any native apps are not. However, a C&D hardly seems like the proper course of action here, given that Microsoft says they are willing to display Google's ads.
- zmmmmm 13y agoThis is a really interesting battle of platform vs proprietary business going on here. Is Youtube a platform? If so, then it should be offered to everyone equally. That's almost the definition of a platform. But is it actually a proprietary business that operates purely in the interests of its owner? In that case it should be offered to whoever makes money for the owner. If you are a content creator, Youtube tries very hard to look like a platform. But if you are a business that wants to make money from showing the content - Youtube looks like a proprietary business. Lots of companies are trying to have it both ways these days. Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google too - all want to say, "hey, here we have a platform, you can come and develop here and make money without prejudice". But at the same time they all want to say, "we make the rules, we decide who wins, who loses and who's in and who's out and have no obligation to be fair about it". Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft would get heavily criticised for using "secret" windows APIs in office. Not that they didn't. But there was a general consensus that it was highly unfair for MS to have access to APIs that others didn't. These days this resistance has been broken down by companies like Apple and Facebook, offering incredibly attractive "platforms" but without the guarantees that a platform used to have. Would anybody complain now that Apple uses a private API on the iPhone that 3rd party developers don't have access to? These days people virtually insist on it, for security, if nothing else. So to me this is one more aspect of this long and winding battle between companies that want to have it all - pretend to offer "open" platforms but keep the reigns under their control. And they are all guilty.
- _pmf_ 13y ago> If you are a content creator, Youtube tries very hard to look like a platform. If you have money, scammers try very hard to look like business partners.
- drewcrawford 13y ago> Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft When you say "screamed murder", do you mean that people got huffy about it on the Internet? That's still the case. Exhibit A: your comment. Did you mean "antitrust lawsuits used to be filed about it?" A random sampling of any paragraph in the actual court decision should convince you that the situation is not comparable to today: > Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world- wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. - U.S. v. Microsoft, Findings of Fact If at some point Apple's share of the phone market, or even of the ARM-based phone market, exceeds 90 percent, over a period of a decade--by all means, let's file a lawsuit about it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- wfunction 13y agoIt's quite likely that they're only "more than happy" to include advertising if they can also reap some profits from the ads shown to their "mutual customers". (Why else would you word it that way?)
- rtcoms 13y agoIsn't Microsoft released an ad(scroogled) some days ago attacking Google that they track users. So now Microsoft doesn't have any problem if Google track Microsoft users. What an irony !
- belorn 13y agoWhat a move... now if this only worked on movie companies. Host a bunch of infringing works, and when the takedown notice come, say that you are "more than happy" to pay license fee. The only thing one need is to get the same access and license deal that netflix got. Anything else would be unfair.