According to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, NBC has put together a partnership to try and rival YouTube. The aim is to make the system more effective for advertisers. Will this strategy work? Well, I think it has a chance given the big players that are involved, but targeting advertisers as the primary beneficiary of the system may not be the best approach. Additionally, I’m sure Google has been working on creating an effective video advertising system since they rolled out Google video.

Google already offers a video advertising platform but it is not integrated with YouTube or Google Video. I’d be willing to bet though that they are only steps away from launching such a service. While the partnership includes Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL (all of Google’s main competitors), they still have a major battle ahead. Google is currently the leader in online advertising and all of the competitors have been trying to play catchup. I’m not suggesting that the others should just sit and watch though. If there is any hope of success, the proposed partners (News Corp, NBC, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL) surely have the means to make a viable competitor to Google. One notable aspect of this joint venture is that News Corp and NBC (two old media leaders) are working together to take on the new media leader. This underscores the sheer power that Google holds. It will be interesting to see what happens when the new video site is rolled out this summer.