You have to read TechCrunch about how big media is banding together to make their own YouTube. Google’s internal name for the effort? According to Arrington it’s The Clown Co.. As in making fun of them.

The comments are just as fun as the write-up. Again and again mainstream companies try to be web 2.0. Most fail.

I think this comment puts it aptly:

I’ve worked for a broadcast TV co for little over a year now. With a few individual exceptions, it has never stopped feeling like being on the set of “Walking With Dinosaurs”. A few things I can assure you from personal experience:

- Yes, they really are that stupid, ignorant and arrogant. Especially at the top.
- No, they really haven’t thought this through. The for instance have no friggin’ clue how or even if this can be realised technically. They have no idea about what the users experience should/could be like. They themselves are certainly not the target audience.
- No, they have no clue why YouTube is so succesful. For that matter, they still have no clue why Google is succesful and why Google is getting any advertising revenue.
- They are absolutely, utterly convinced of their success. After all, they are Television. Internet is just a passing phase on the way to New Television, which ofcourse will be More Television. Television is God.

I hope the name Clown Co will stick. It’s utterly appropriate. I will be the first to buy a t-shirt with that Clown Co logo on it, and wear it to work. And the sad fact will be: nobody will be offended, ’cause they won’t have a clue…

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