Over at TCS, Glenn Reynolds has harsh words for Amazon's new online video service:

So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can't burn to DVD and can't watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon.

[CNET reviewer Tom Merritt's] advice to Amazon: "Try again."

Update: Jeff Jarvis has equally harsh words for "The National Broadband (ugh) Company", NBC's foray into, well, broadband:

* “If we really want to compete with big aggregators like Yahoo and Google, we need our video in as many places as possible,” Mr. Falco said.

No, if you wanted it as many places as possible you would follow the YouTube model and let us distribute it for you. But you don’t trust us. Odd not to trust the people who make you money.

* And my favorite: “When ‘Saturday Night Live’ had a great clip of Lazy Sunday, YouTube made a lot of money off it,” Randy Falco, the president of the NBC Universal television group, said at a news conference yesterday. “In the future, when we have a Lazy Sunday clip, NBBC will make a lot of money on it.”
No, fool, you made a lot of money from YouTube because your long-dead stinker of a show, SNL, got new audience because your public — the ones you don’t trust — put the video up and got it seen … until you foolishly made them cease and desist.

The Times says lots of companies are trying out NBC’s service because it’s nonexclusive (including About.com, where I consult, but where I was not involved in this). It’s a what-the-heck. But I’d sure as hell have a strategy for YouTube, Revver, Veoh, et al. If NBC had any brains, it would, too.