This week has seen two very significant announcements for those of us involved in the world of online video.
First of all it was revealed that YouTube is to trial subscription services for its channels, ostensibly meaning that anyone can become a Netflix - provided that you can somehow stand out in the mire that is planet YouTube.
Secondly, Adobe has stepped up the ante on its Creative Cloud - although we have commented previously on this blog that Adobe often over-promise and under-deliver. In this case, though, I believe that their strategy is bang on.
But there are some gaping holes in these models. One of the major ones is in tackling rights. To date, most online models deal with cleared rights and are pretty unsophisticated. But the reality is that the vast majority of good produced content carries with it a plethora of rights, from music to artists to producers and financiers.
What YouTube and Google have done is solve some problems that much smaller companies already offered a solution for, but their Achilles' Heel remains the fact that in the cloud, assets are not such a big deal, but rights are.