Google is negotiating with movie studios to expand its movie-streaming service beyond the current crop of second-tier titles, according to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch. The move would put Google into more direct competition with Netflix, which launched its own streaming-only service in November.
The deals are being led by former Netflix executive Robert Kynci and will eventually tie in with Google TV. Earlier this month, Google acquired Widevine, a company specializing in online distribution and digital rights management for movies, and that acquisition could be used to power the improved service.
Google is casting about for new business areas to bolster its search business, and entertainment content seems to be a big new push: the company is also approaching music labels with big checks to establish its own online music service.
Google's biggest content play to date, the acquisition of YouTube, is finally starting to generate some money--on the company's last earnings call, it said that it was "monetizing" more than 2 billion videos per week, which is up 40% from last year. But the company wouldn't say whether YouTube is in fact profitable.
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See Also:
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- Netflix To Join The S&P 500, As The New York Times Gets The Boot
- Google Wanted To Buy Spotify, But Internal Fighting Stopped It
Google Taking On Netflix With More Streaming Movies (GOOG, NFLX)
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