Doug June 25th, 2009
If you see an influx of interesting videos on YouTube in the near future, you can thank Apple for them. Or, of course, if they’re awful, you can blame the company. But either way, a Music Ally article reports, “Google has announced that uploads from mobile phones to YouTube have increased by 400% since last Friday, when Apple’s new iPhone 3GS went on sale.” And that number’s liable to rise as more people become owners and more owners read the instruction manual.
Doug April 23rd, 2009
Music videos have become a little more rare on YouTube recently; scuffles with groups representing musicians in both the UK and Germany have resulted in YouTube pulling all professional clips from the country-specific sites to be on the safe side. But YouTube’s now in talks with the Germany organization GEMA, and if it can work out a deal in this case, it may be clear sailing all across the world. People in the UK will get music videos back, and folks elsewhere won’t have to worry about losing theirs.
Doug April 2nd, 2009
It’s okay for you to be skeptical; according to a post on the YouTube Blog, even the video-sharing site’s own employees thought they might be victims of an April Fools’ Day prank when they heard the news. Believe it or not, though, YouTube was given a Peabody Award, which puts it on a level with some very distinguished entities, including The New York Times, “Washington Week with Gwen Ifill,” and “Lost.” And we should note that there haven’t been any reports of Hell freezing over as a result.
Doug March 26th, 2009
Have you ever stopped to consider whether the FBI can create really wonderful videos? Or if everyone inside the CIA is an amazing photographer? Well, you might get to find out, because the General Services Administration has signed deals with YouTube and Flickr (along with a few other services), and government agencies can now use the social media sites as they please. According to Federal Computer Week, concerns about “liability limits, endorsements and freedom of information” are no more. But in the movie category, it’s a good bet that Love Naturally will be tons better than anything the feds can put together.
Doug March 19th, 2009
YouTube users aren’t accustomed to seeing live video. They aren’t often shown long clips, either. This is the time of year in which many people and companies come down with March Madness, though, and it seems YouTube’s embraced the idea by showing live basketball games. One more interesting note: it’s Microsoft’s Silverlight technology that is powering the experience.
Admin March 9th, 2009
Is recession and financial fear pushing folks to stay at home and entertain themselves instead of splashing out on a movie and dinner date? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s the inclement weather. Whatever the reason, online video viewing continued to rise in January.
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Doug February 12th, 2009
Downloading YouTube videos has long been possible, but not easy - the process involves outside sites, wait times, and other little annoyances. Now YouTube’s toying with the idea of actually allowing downloads. The bad news is that the option isn’t available with every clip, and in some cases, you may find that fees are being charged. More details and a few examples are available through the YouTube Blog.
Doug February 5th, 2009
Version 5.0 of Google Earth was recently released, and the main selling point (figuratively speaking since it’s free) was the inclusion of detailed ocean imagery. Now it seems YouTube’s benefiting from the upgrade, as users are being encouraged to indicate with geo tags which videos were shot underwater. People who play in a lot of oceans and lakes - or just enjoy seeing what other folks find there - should get to it.
Doug January 29th, 2009
YouTube’s easily the top video-sharing site. Now, if it wants to move forward, it’ll have to either increase its offering of professional-looking stuff or improve at the advertising game. A single step might let it win in both arenas, as the site’s supposedly nearing a deal with William Morris Agency. This firm represents stars including Clint Eastwood, Russell Crowe, and Denzel Washington. It’s possible their names will be attached to YouTube sometime soon, which is something advertisers would love.
Doug January 15th, 2009
This may not be a “best of both worlds” scenario; there are certainly better things about the Web than YouTube, and a lot of people prefer to use their TVs for activities besides gaming. But YouTube for Television has entered a beta stage of development, and during it, owners of the PS3 and Wii are the intended audience. It’s an interesting step forward that could lead to a great deal of interest on the part of advertisers.
Doug November 7th, 2008
Mark your calendars for November 22nd. Although no one’s quite sure how it would handle questions relating to revenue and censorship, there’s a rumor that YouTube will launch a live streaming option sometime that Saturday. Nicholas Carlson, who covered the rumor, writes, “One possibility that we feel Google shareholders should root for: YouTube will launch live streaming as a service for paying customers only.”
Doug October 30th, 2008
YouTube videos tend not to test a person’s attention span; two to three minutes of some comedy show or music video is quite manageable. Still, there are times when whatever you really want to see (or want somebody else to see) is buried a little ways within a clip, and for these moments, YouTube’s now allowing users to “deep link” to a specific point. Just stick “#t=1m15s” (or whatever number of minutes and seconds you want) at the end of a video’s URL, and you’ll be all set.
Doug October 9th, 2008
While old Monty Python clips are as funny as ever, there’s much more serious stuff going on in the world, and YouTube’s doing its best to acknowledge the situation. A fresh version of the site’s YourMoney channel, for example, “is YouTube’s one-stop destination for expert financial insight,” according to a post on the YouTube Blog. Bank of America helped build the channel, and as a bonus, it offers a customizable Google Finance gadget.
Doug October 2nd, 2008
You know how it (sometimes) goes: you watch a YouTube video, an overlay ad appears, you ignore the ad, and your day continues as scheduled. Except it seems that YouTube may soon get a little more forceful; according to Liz Gannes, the site will show post-roll video ads to users who don’t click on the overlays. What’s good for these users and bad for YouTube and its advertisers is that there’s no reason for the average person to stick around.
Doug September 12th, 2008
The world’s most popular video-sharing site has become a little less violent. Now banned from YouTube are any videos that “directly incite violence” or “encourage other users to violate the Terms of Use.” Google’s lawyers and/or policymakers haven’t admitted as much, but the decision appears to trace back to a push by Senator Joe Lieberman to have terrorists’ recruitment and training videos removed.
