Yesterday MySpace re-launched its video sharing site, renaming it MySpaceTV.  The New York Times reports that this is a serious attempt by News Corp, the owner of MySpace, to challenge YouTube.  As with YouTube, users of the new service don’t have to be signed in as members of the MySpace community to share their videos.  The way it was set up before, one had to be a part of the MySpace network just to watch MySpace videos, a major annoyance to casual video-watchers re-directed from search engines.  This feature should in fact attract new users to MySpace and expand its reach for quality video content and viewers.

The new site will emphasize professionally done videos selected by the MySpace editors.  In a move toward showing more professional content, MySpace became the exclusive outlet for Sony’s “Minisodes” just last week.  Sponsored by Honda, these five-minute clips are from fifteen vintage sitcoms including “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Silver Spoons.”  This type of offering will surely expand as more deals are worked out for content from sources such as News Corp owned Fox.

These moves should put MySpace in a more competitive position vs. YouTube.  The stakes are high, particularly as YouTube is testing social networking features on its TestTube test platform and is expected to challenge MySpace in the social networking arena.