Movielink to allow DVD burning...YouTube makes a splash in Sun Valley

According to the LA Times, Movielink is on the very of announcing a new feature: the ability to burn a DVD of the movie you've just downloaded. Technology from Sonic Solutions will allegedly prevent would-be pirates from then making multiple dupes of that movie. (Here's the Wall Street Journal piece for you subscribers.) This is the first sign to me that Movielink is becoming a real business, and delivering something that consumers might want.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley made a big splash at last week's Sun Valley gathering of media titans, mostly for being the youngest guest there (29). But also for having a Web site that now attracts more traffic than any of the TV networks' sites, serving up 100 million videos a day. The LA Times says that many in attendance, though, were wondering whether YouTube is really becoming one of the Web's "anchor tenants" -- like a Google, Yahoo, eBay or MySpace -- or simply a passing fad. I wonder about this, too: YouTube's biggest challenge now is keeping its giant audience supplied with stuff that they want to watch. I think that the audience's expectations for Web video are going to slowly rise. Pointless and stupid is fun...for a while. If you're old enough, you may recall that `America's Funniest Home Videos' was once the most popular show on television.