Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) has announced a new online video sharing and storage service. The new service, aptly -- and boringly -- named "Best Buy Video Sharing," is being launched in partnership with online hosting company Mydeo (which I suppose is a play on "My Video").This new service must be geared toward customers who would utilize Best Buy for Business, the retailer's division that markets itself towards small- and medium-sized businesses. I say this because the cost of this new video sharing service -- $6.97 for 100 minutes of video hosting to start -- can't really compete with consumer-level services like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube and Google Video, which are free.
But then again, many businesses have training needs and other unique needs that would require secure video hosting with long lengths (an hour or more), and this service would appear to be perfect for those needs. However, if Best Buy is trying to crack into the video content consumer distribution business, I fail to see what the point is. Will consumers readily pay for something when the competition gives it away for free? Is history holds, then most likely they will not.
Best Buy should market this new service to the business customer and de-emphasize it to the standard consumer. Whether it does this is anyone's guess.
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