DivX, the company we all recognize for video coding and compression has recently branched out with the launch of their own YouTube like service called Stage6.The site definitely has a very different feel to YouTube but essentially does the same. A barrier to wider adoption could be the fact that to watch the videos you need the DivX media player. That fact is also not made very clear on the website either and you can already see people being confused in the comments on the website.
It also has a "TV Channels" feature which bears a resemblance to the videocast systems used by Instant Media and Democracy Player, although the Stage6 one is peer to peer.
DivX look like they plan to monetize on the service with a "download to own" service. The videos can also be played on the 1800 consumer electronics devices that use DivX technology and I'm sure DivX are planning to somehow link those with Stage6 videos.
Personally I don't think Stage6 offers anything new or innovative to its field. What I would really like to see is a video service that has more of an open system rather than a closed one which works with only one technology.
1. Your logic in the last paragraph doesn't make sense. If you want an "open" technology that works with a wide diversity of video software and hardware then that hardware and software needs to have something in common. They must all share a common denominator that creates an "open" universality, in which everything works with everything else. DivX has the potential to be that common denominator. Unlike quicktime and windows media, the DivX format is much more open and less proprietary. Like you said, they've already put DivX playback in thousands of different consumer electronics in a wide diversity of brands.
Posted at 1:30PM on Sep 5th 2006 by Josh