News Corp re-announces disintermediation of Web2.0

News Corp COO Peter Chernin announced (Multichannel) on Tuesday that MySpace was considering launching a competitor to YouTube.  “If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application", he said (Mashable), "whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket…almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace, there’s no reason why we can’t build a parallel business.” This is, of course, more-or-less a repetition of what News Corp said in its 2006 annual report (pdf): "MySpace is a major driver of traffic to the so-called “Internet 2.0” sites – picture-hosting sites like Photobucket and video repositories like YouTube. There is no reason why we can’t replicate that functionality and retain that traffic – and its attendant revenue."

If YouTube and Photobucket are only realising today that MySpace intends to close the loop and keep the traffic, and the revenues, in-house, they just haven't been paying attention.