Thanks to my friend Ed for directing me to this article.
Basically, " YouTube has deleted nearly 30,000 files after a nonprofit group representing Japanese television and music companies said the clips violated copyright laws, according news reports from Japan."
Let the crack down begin. I only have one question....how the hell did they find all of that stuff? hmmm
Although talk of this initially started out as rumor, it appears as though it might actually be true. Several sources, including TechCrunch, Informitv and the WallStreet Journal are saying that, while neither YouTube nor Google will comment, there have been talks between the two companies involving a $1.6 billion purchase of YouTube. Many speculate that this, in fact, makes sense, that YouTube is losing money even though it is growing much faster then Google Video and that Google already sends a large amount o traffic to YouTube, more traffic then almost anywhere, except myspace.
On the surface, this seems like a good deal for both parties, and it certainly is a great deal for Google. But, as Mark Cuban points out, "Youtube now becomes a deep pocketed target. Sure, they can try to work out deals with the biggest media companies, but those deals are going to be ultra expensive...........Its not the big companies they would have to worry about the most. Its the little guy. Youtube would get sued by the thousands of rights holders who will seek the maximum amount per download from Youtube for their content." I'm not sure that this is necessarily true, because if it was why haven't we seen these kind of lawsuits yet? I think the real problem is that, despite its impossible structure and bad interface design, YouTube still provides a space for user-generated content. Forgetting for a moment that this could be the beginning of the end of copyrighted content on the site (cause thats not why anyone goes to YouTube right?), it seems that this is just one step in the direction of creating another space for network television.
In fact its already happening. Also today, it was reported on Federal News Radio, that YouTube struck deals with CBS, Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which comes less than a month after YouTube reached a deal with Warner Music Group Corp. As a result of this deal, YouTube will supposedly allow CBS to test out new technology that will help the network find copyrighted content on YouTube and remove it. All three companies will receive advertising revenue from ads that play alongside copyrighted content.
Not really sure exactly how I feel about all this, as I am not particularily fond of YouTube, although I do enjoy a funny cat video every once in a while. I have always believed that there is a better model for distributing and generating shared user content. I have a feeling the deal with Google will go through and, in some ways, it is the direction that YouTube has been going in all along.
***Update. The deal is done. Let the lawsuits begin....maybe.
While looking around and researching other things, I came upon this website, pickle.com, that surprisingly (and probably accidently) are doing something very different with online video and photos. Once you register, you are given an email address where you and your friends and family can email video and photos to (in addition to the traditional uploading tools, including a flickr type desktop uploader). You can chose the email address (provided its not taken by another user). You can also create 'pickle boxes' (yes, I laughed at the name for a moment) that each have their own unique email addresses. Each box, and your particular profile, have their own unique url on the pickle server and their appearance can be modified slightly with configured layouts (imagine if they opened it up to include CSS editing like myspace). The most interesting part of the limited control a user has over the look of their profile or 'pickle box' is that you can reorder your media through drag and drop, rather then only being able to sort via date taken or date uploaded
The idea of enabling email posting/uploading is not a particularily new one, although advertising it so boldly one their site as a major feature is somewhat unique. What I find interesting about this site is that, inadvertently perhaps, a user or a anyone who has the particular email address of someone's profile or pickle box can send posts via their mobile phone. I tested it with a Nextel i860 and it worked, although in the description of the photo there was an incredible load of garbage sent as default by Nextel (which is why I doubt the site's developers necessarily intended this functionality). I also found it very interesting that the site offers multiple layers of privacy control. You can open up your email address (either for your profile or your pickle boxes) to everyone, only pickle contacts or only people from certain email addresses. You can also restrict the viewing of your profile or your pickle boxes to only pickle users, only your contacts with an invitation code or you can make the page password protected! I am very interested. The site seems to be addressing two major issues, allowing multiple people to post photos and videos to a particular page whose privacy settings can be user controlled and making automatic posting easy for everyone (most people who can take digital pictures know how to send an email). The interface could use a little bit of work but it wasn't hard to figure it out. Given that my first pickle box url is www.pickle.com/cat/102, I wonder how many people know about or are using the site. Check it out. Find me on the site. Or send video and photos to cat.firsttest@pickle.com. I would love to see how the messages come through from different mobile carriers.
Originally on TechCrunch, apparently microsoft is about to release LiveSide, which will be an MSN instead of a live.com product and eventually live at soapbox.msn.com. Although little seems to be known about the specifics, some of the functionality includes:
* Upload videos in almost any format—like from your video or digital camera (maximum file size is currently 100MB)
* Tag and categorize your videos to make it easy for other people to find them
* Watch original videos and browse for new ones at the same time
* Set up your own personal RSS feeds for videos you’re interested in
* Use your Windows Live Spaces profile with Soapbox on MSN Video
* Embed a video on your Web site or blog
Great, thats all we need is another YouTube.
Orginally on TechCrunch. I had previously written about Grouper before because of their unique commenting on video with video feature, but I had not realized that they had a developed a closed (non-bittorent) P2P network for distributing media between members on the site, which seems to be a major reason behind Sony's interest in the video startup. Unfortunately, the desktop application is only available for Windows XP, sorry MAC users.
Apparently, Grouper has been rather successful in attracting interst having had about 542,000 unique visitors in July 2006. However, in compariosn to YouTube’s 16 million, the price tag for Grouper's acquisition seems to be a bit high. I suppose, however, that in a rush to discover new and profitable ways to distribute media online, companies like Sony are willing to pay a high price.
Thanks to Yonatan for being up much earlier then me and finding this rather interesting story.
Eyespot will now be offering one click publishing to Blip.tv and Veoh. Blip.tv is a video sharing site that, among its many features, allows you to blog mobile video and was chosen to provide the underlying technology for CNN’s user generated video section, CNN Exchange, launched last month. Veoh is another video sharing site, that looks somehwat similar to youtube on first appearance, and provides 10 minute flash video previews of longer videos and allows you to download the original full-length feature.
The partnerships seem particularily smart because not only will it allow eyespot users additional places to share their videos, but it will allow users of the other sites to edit there videos through eyespot.
In other news, from the same article, Eyespot's closest competitor Jumpcut has announced a small promotional partnership with Fox Atomic, an arm of Twentieth Century Fox and has received angel funding from Michael Robertson, the man behind MP3.com, Gizmo Project, Ajax Launch and countless other projects.
Finally signed up for Dabble today. Its a site that allows you to 'bookmark' videos from the web using a handy little 'add to dabble' tool within a your web browser and then tag and organize them on the site. They don't actually host any media, but the idea is very interesting, mostly because in addition to finding your own selections, you can search through those that others have bookmarked. Finding video that you actually want to watch on the web is incredibly difficult, perhaps if they have enough users this will prove to be an interesting step towards a solution. At the very least it seems like a cool way to save the location of stuff you find yourself.
Not that I wasn't expecting it, afterall....I'm no genius. So, according to an article at techcrunch today, Grouper, a video sharing site that I have personally only looked at a couple of times, has launched a new feature that allows users to comment on FRAMES OF VIDEO. (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah). However, instead of using text you comment with your webcam. Here is an example of the app working...pretty cool. I really like the way they designed it, especially the fact that all the comments come up within the player and you can click them and view them immediately.
The site itself is not too bad either. The design is okay. You can create groups and invite others to join. Once inside a group, users can stream music, download personal files, and IM/chat in a private setting with other group members, kind of interesting The video files can also be podcasts. And you can further feed your 'myspace beast' with one click publishing.....But the software is only available for Windows XP....sorry my MAC babies...but hey you probably didn't want it anyway.
Just some photoshop examples I mocked up quickly for discussion.
would appreciate comments, specifically on the front page.
Today I received an email from David Todd at eyespot:
Hi Cat,
Thanks for the posts. It's nice to see people recognize the value of the ajax editor as compared to flash.We are listening and will be implementing more community features as soon as we can.
Best,
Dave
PS Say hi to Dan O'Sullivan at ITP for me.
I have to say, it is nice to know that people actually are listening (and reading cat's mind eye). Interestingly, after reading more about eyespot's ajax editor, I have become very particial to using ajax for freeformed instead of flash. More research on the pros and cons as related to our specific needs is needed, however.
Also very interesting that David knows Dan O'Sullivan...perhaps thats why I originally received the eyespot link from him.
Until I read this article, I had no idea that eyespot was using a javascript video editor. I also had no idea that they had competition in the form of Motionbox and Jumpcut. I checked out these two sites. Motionbox was by far my favorite in terms of user interface and overall design. What can I say, I love the concept of the tag cloud (even though tagging is somewhat dead). However, Jumpcut seems to have a much wider user base and additional features, such as the inclusion of photos, event notification, commenting and a differentiation between 'clips' and movies that make it much more interesting. Both websites include the ability to create and join groups, although Motionbox seems to have very few. Jumpcut also provides users with the absolute url of any selected video and code to embed the video (yay for myspace users...I guess...although this is obviously useful for many other reasons), while Motionbox provides users with the ability to share videos with others via email or link to it via its url. Both applications use flash for editing purposes. I still think that eyespot's new fuctionality, especially their mobile posting capabilty, make them a much more interesting app, but I would still LOVE to make comments on things (if not tag stuff)...maybe they're listening...