SofaTube: A different way of looking at content

Sofatube
When you have a spare minute, drop by the new SofaTube, a service that swipes YouTube and Revver videos and completely reconfigures the layout to make it more viewable from far away (hence, on your sofa).SofaTube is apparently being marketed for use on home theater PCs, the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, according to Mashable’s Pete Cashmore.

In SofaTube’s case, they may run afoul of YouTube’s execs for how they are using the content. At least one court has cried foul over repurposing content in its ruling against deep linking.

But picture this: How long will it be before someone starts remixing your news site’s headlines or other content into something more user friendly? Or, as I’ve said before, a site like News Sniffer may come along to monitor all your edits and republish all the filthy comments that are moderated. Either way, I get the feeling that Google News is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this sort of thing.

Should such operations be embraced for the attention and interest they generate? Or will they eventually go too far with using the five-finger discount for content?

Author: Danny Sanchez

Danny Sanchez is the Audience Development Manager at Tribune's Sun-Sentinel.com and OrlandoSentinel.com. Danny has been with Tribune since 2005 in a variety of editorial, digital and product development roles in Hartford, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. He has also previously worked in the newsrooms of the Tampa Bay Times and The Miami Herald.