YouTube competitor in the works from News Corp. and NBC

Look out Google and look out YouTube, for you have a formidable new opponent entering your arena. At least, that is what News Corp. and NBC would like to believe as they today announced the upcoming launch of an online video service. Not yet giving it a name nor a firm date for launch, they are already backed by some industry bigtimes such as MSN, Yahoo, Time Warner and the News Corp.-owned MySpace. The various sites owned by them will incorporate embedded players to view “NewTube” hosted content, much as you can see YouTube doing on various forums around the web.

Without an exact date, they are tentatively saying “this summer”, and already have several advertisers backing them as well. While you have a strong mix of wealthy and popular sites backing them, YouTube is infamous these days and has become ingrained in millions of peoples minds as the de factor Internet video site. Trying to sway them away might be viewed as taboo, even though YouTube faces numerous problems with piracy and lawsuits. The exact nature of the content the new site will provide isn't revealed, though we can imagine they will try to offer the self-made service that YouTube offers as well as paid content.