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LAST NIGHT, YOUTUBE announced its premium version of its service called YouTube Red. Essentially a paid tier on top of the free service, it allows users to watch videos without ads, listen to music in the background and download videos.
The service is only available in the US for now and it’s not clear when it will be made available in Ireland.
Yet what has been gaining the most attention is the name itself. According to the company, the name came from how much the colour red is associated with YouTube, after having talks with both users and fans.
That hasn’t stopped numerous comparisons to a porn site with a very similar name soon after it was unveiled.
Molly / TwitterI can imagine someone being caught on RedTube and be like "oh man I meant to type in YouTube Red. Whoops"
— Molly Barnes (@Foxtrot44) October 21, 2015
This comparison doesn’t seem to bother YouTube where one of its executives said it’s “not too worried about that other site” and that a lot of consumer testing was done before it settled on the name.
There are many other porn sites out there whose names are references to YouTube, mainly as a way of piggybacking on its success. For example, RedTube was founded in 2007, two years after YouTube was launched, and Google hasn’t taken action against it or any other NSFW sites with similar names.
The service will first launch in the US on 28 October. It will include original programming at the start of 2016 and will range from short videos to feature-length movies from established YouTube stars.
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More like YouTube red piggybacking on the success of RedTube.
I’d imagine it was done on purpose to get maximum publicity and as usual it has worked!
Great excuse for when some teenager gets caught looking at porn…….
“Honest Mum I thought I was looking at YouTube Red!, not RedTube!”
And whats the excuse for his pants being around his ankles.
Why would they need an excuse?
He was checking for lumps. Always works for me anyway.
What is this red tube people speak of?
Gospel music website. Its lovely.
What’s Redtube???
Ask your son.
It’s what your mickey will look like after watching it.
WTF is “PewDiePie”?
Gaming channel.
Gaming channel is stretching it. Let’s just call him an internet personality who makes videos on YouTube
Paying to skip ads and download videos? It’s called Adblock and YouTube downloader add-on in Firefox. To hell with paying Google for something you can already do for free.
What I see happening is them blocking as blocker in the hope it will force people to subscribe. All it will do is turn people away.
Someone else will come up with a new video sharing sight and so the circle of internet sites begins again
Love it when someone comments that they immediately thought of red tube ! What’s red tube ? Now I assume it’s a porn site right ?
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