Sony Readying eyeVio for Friday Launch

Adding one more name to the list of film producers gearing to do battle with YouTube in the market head-on, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer told a press conference this morning - as quoted by Reuters - his company may be ready as soon as tomorrow to unveil its answer to YouTube: a video sharing service to be known as 'eyeVio.'

Sir Howard apparently gave hints that eyeVio would not be without controls, however, in comments such as this one reported by Reuters: "This is part of Sony's quiet software revolution...an opportunity to transmit user-generated video anywhere you want to, anytime to anybody, in a protected environment."

Other comments, such as one from a Sony spokesperson who characterized eyeVio as a "clean and safe" location for housing advertising, prompted concern from The Utube Blog, which covers the video sharing and streaming industry. "Part of the problem, of course," the blog's editors wrote this morning, "is how many humans do you have to hire to screen 65,000 files a day, the amount YouTube typically gets?"

Such an environment, analysts believe, might appeal not so much to individuals looking to share what they saw on TV last night with one another, as much as to companies that want an outlet to share their productions with the public without the public commandeering their wares and taking control of the sharing themselves.

Another of the Sony spokesperson's comments to Reuters implied that eyeVio has yet to sign up outside advertisers yet. So perhaps the term Sony is looking for, to apply to eyeVio's launch tomorrow, is "beta."