It’s been hard to open a laptop or turn on the television over the last week without hearing news of the unrest in Egypt. On YouTube, thousands of videos of the protests have poured in, whether as unfiltered footage from the demonstrations themselves, or as news reports from our media partners around the globe.
We understand how closely the world is following these events, and want to help people access and share this information quickly and easily on YouTube. We’re helping people do this in three ways:
Highlighting the latest footage on CitizenTube, our news and politics channel, and inviting people to submit video they’ve come across.
Pointing our users directly to these videos through banners at the top of YouTube pages, and through links alongside YouTube videos.
Streaming live coverage of Al Jazeera’s broadcasts about the unfolding events, on both their Arabic and English YouTube channels.
And our Google colleagues have also turned on a speak-to-tweet service to help people in Egypt stay connected at this difficult time.
Here’s a playlist of videos that have come in:
YouTube has used similar tools and live streaming technologies in the past to give our users access to information on major world news events, such as the Haiti earthquake and the protests in Iran. We hope this footage provides a unique window into the events unfolding in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and many other cities across Egypt.
Earlier today, for the second year in a row, President Obama sat down with YouTube for his first interview after the State of the Union speech. The President took the opportunity to respond to the protests in Egypt for the first time, to address your concerns on jobs, the debt, and health care, and to answer a series of more personal questions that you submitted in video and text over the past few days on YouTube. The interview took place in the Diplomatic Room in the West Wing, which is the same room where FDR used to deliver his fireside chats.
All told, you submitted almost 140,000 questions to our Google Moderator platform over the past few days, and you cast more than 1.3 million votes on which questions you wanted to have asked. With so many compelling questions, it was a challenge to determine the final list to bring to the White House. Our goal was to cover a wide range of issues that were relevant following the State of the Union speech; to remove duplicate questions; and include video questions wherever possible. With those criteria in mind, we looked at the top 5% of the questions you voted to the top in order to determine which questions to pose to the President. None of the questions were chosen by the White House, or seen by the President before the interview. Here is a playlist of all the video questions that were asked:
We’ll be conducting a similar interview with U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner in a few weeks - stay tuned for more details. And we’re also expanding this YouTube Interview program globally as part of YouTube World View, a series of interviews in 2011 that will give you even more access and insight into leaders and elected officials from around the world.
In around an hour’s time, U.S. President Barack Obama will sit down for his first post-State of the Union interview – and you might be the interviewer.
Last week we announced that the President would address a selection of your questions in a special YouTube interview. The deadline for question submissions was midnight ET on Wednesday, January 26, and at that time more than 190,000 people had cast more than 1.3 million votes on nearly 140,000 questions.
Tune in to youtube.com/askobama at 2:30 p.m. ET to see and hear the President’s responses to a selection of your top-voted questions, streamed live from the White House.
Here’s a selection of just some of the thousand questions that were submitted, on topics ranging from health care, to university education, to jobs, to sports.
Olivia Ma, News and Politics Manager, recently watched "Ask President Obama."
On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their lives to YouTube to take part in “Life in a Day,” a historic cinematic experiment to document a single day on earth. From Australia to Zambia, more than 80,000 videos, totaling 4,500 hours of footage, were submitted to the project. After months of hard work, Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald and a team of editors have created a 90-minute documentary film that gives a surprising, honest and entertaining self-portrait of our world.
While “Life in a Day” will be officially released later this year, tonight you have a very special opportunity to tune in to the world premiere direct from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The premiere will be followed by a live Q&A with Kevin Macdonald and key contributors to the film. You can submit questions for the Q&A here.
Tonight’s stream begins at 5pm PT/8pm ET on the Life in a Day channel. If you’re outside of the United States, you can catch a rebroadcast on Friday, January 28, at 7pm in your local time zone, captioned and subtitled in 25 additional languages, with an additional option for audio description (AD) in English.
Many of the YouTube videos you watch and love are also shared on sites beyond YouTube.com. Our site is built, in part, on social tools like comments, video responses and ratings. In recent years we’ve worked to integrate these social signals across other popular social platforms. For example, we see more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link, and over 150 years worth of YouTube video is watched on Facebook every day.
We've always believed that there are great conversations happening all the time off of YouTube.com, and that commentary has the potential to enrich your experience when watching and discovering video on YouTube itself. So today we're excited to announce we’ve acquired Fflick, a talented team that analyzes social media data to surface great content and the discussions around it.
We were impressed by the technical talent, design instincts and entrepreneurial spirit of the Fflick team. As part of YouTube, the Fflick team will help us build features to connect you with the great videos talked about all over the web, and surface the best of those conversations for you to participate in.
We look forward to rolling out more features that help you enjoy and discover new videos to watch, so stay tuned!
Diposting oleh
Greatest on Selasa, 25 Januari 2011
We recently gave you a sneak peek at “Life in a Day”, and mentioned that Director Kevin Macdonald had selected a group of contributors to join him at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival for the film’s world premiere. The documentary film is a collaboration between Macdonald, Ridley Scott, YouTube, and LG about a single day on earth.
These contributors have now arrived in Park City, Utah from as far afield as Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, and Japan. Many of them are travelling overseas for the first time. Starting today, you can see their Sundance journey on the Life in a Day channel, where we’ll be posting daily video updates of their experience, as well as interviews with Kevin and the Life in a Day crew.
You can tune in to the live stream of the world premiere from the Sundance Film Festival this Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT. There will also be an additional option for audio description (AD) in English. If you’re outside of the United States, you can also catch the rebroadcast on Friday, January 28, at 7pm in your local time zone. The rebroadcast will be closed captioned and subtitled on YouTube in 25 languages.
While the final film contains 1,025 videos that give an honest and compelling glimpse of our world, the film itself is only one part of the Life in a Day story. To celebrate the many and varied contributions from people around the world, we’ve created a special exhibition at the Sundance Film Festival to allow visitors to browse the tens of thousands of videos submitted to the project. You will be able to see the exhibition from the 'Experience Sundance' page on the channel.
Remember to subscribe to the Life in a Day channel for the latest news on the project, and tune in on January 27 for the live premiere.
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver his second State of the Union address - and for the second year in a row, you can submit your follow-up questions for him right here on YouTube. Tune in to youtube.com/askobama and be sure to submit a question for the President (video questions preferred) and vote on your favorites. On Thursday January 27, at 2:30 p.m. ET, we’ll bring a selection of your top-voted questions to the President at the White House in an exclusive, live YouTube Interview.
Just as interested in the GOP’s plan for America? Speaker of the House John Boehner will be doing a YouTube Interview within the month, so stay tuned for more announcements on when and how you can participate. You'll be able to see Rep. Ryan deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union on YouTube after the President’s address as well.
Thursday is your chance to be part of history, so when you sit down to watch the State of the Union tonight on YouTube, grab your video camera, cellphone, or webcam and record a question as the ideas strike you. This is a unique opportunity to have direct access to the President, and if you’re still not sure what to ask, check out this playlist of submitted questions for inspiration.
The deadline for your question submissions is midnight ET on Wednesday, January 26.
This YouTube Interview with President Obama is the beginning of the YouTube World View program, a series of interviews with public leaders and big thinkers who will be answering tough questions all year on YouTube.
Congrats to Josh Sundquist, who edged past Luke Conard in the final hours to win this month’s edition of On the Rise, the program where you decide who goes on the homepage based on a shortlist of channels that’ve experienced fast growth in the last month. Josh is on the homepage today, thanks to your support.
Josh’s list of talents seemingly has no end. He’s an author, a skier, a rapper, a motivational speaker and, naturally, a skilled videographer:
Here’s more from the man himself:
“The growth of my channel is due entirely to the awesomeness of the YouTube community. I especially want to thank iJustine. Even if I wanted to, I could not possibly exaggerate how much she has helped my channel. Also thanks to KsicsFaces for his vids about me, to the VlogBrothers for the stage time at VidCon 2010, to ShaneDawsonTV and Smosh for tweeting my vids, to WillOfDC for promoting my tour, to sxephil, LinzLoves and WHATTHEBUCK for tweeting my book, to Catrific and ItsMeJennaE for putting me in their box, to MissGlamorazzi for her shout-out, to Lisa Harbin for all her behind-the-scenes assistance, and most importantly, to you, my viewers. Without you all watching, talking into a camera would be a very weird hobby. Which is to say, more strange than it already is.”
And that’s not all. Due to the fun we’ve had since starting this program, we’ve created a channel to house regular playlists of even more rising YouTube stars -- because so many more channels deserve a wider audience. These playlists will be featured on the browse page and Tweeted, and will be updated several times a week. Make sure to check back often as your own channel might be featured!
Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched “Amputee Rap.”
The folks at the A.V. Club (the pop culture wing of The Onion) have a new series debuting on YouTube this week called “Inventory,” based on the popular lists by the same name at avclub.com. If you chug pop culture, but like it served up with a twist, “Inventory” will delight every nerve in your nerdy body.
1) What was the genesis of the Inventory program? Inventory started as a weekly feature on avclub.com in 2005 -- we've done something like 300 of them now! We wanted to challenge ourselves to do a list-type feature in our own way, without being trite or boring like so many lists are. We never wanted to do anything like "10 sexiest movie scenes" or anything; we'd rather do "14 movies featuring tragic masturbation scenes." (Like the one in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You know what I mean.) It quickly grew into our most popular feature; our readers love to comment on what we missed, and what they agree/disagree with.
2) How does YouTube help in your process, if at all? We use YouTube all the time to embellish the text Inventory pieces. We'll very frequently reference movie scenes or particular songs, and it's great to be able to show and tell. Sometimes the Inventories are really long -- I've had people tell me that they spent hours just reading one and watching all of the accompanying YouTube clips. Probably while they're supposed to be working.
3) How can the YouTube community get involved in the show, making recommendations or other? We're often inspired by commenters with new Inventory ideas, and we've always positioned Inventory as an incomplete list of whatever we're talking about. If we have 24 great films too painful to watch twice, for example, we'll learn of a dozen more that could've been on the list from our commenters. We like to think of the feature as the beginning of a conversation, not the end of it.
4) What's a little known fact about Inventory that you'd never know by watching it? Maybe that we argue amongst ourselves about what should be included. Sometimes people read Inventory as a definitive list of things, not realizing that there are half a dozen people in a room, often vehemently disagreeing on whether something should be included.
5) What question would you ask yourselves if you were doing this interview? Are you hungry? Can I get you a snack?
Josh Modell, General Manager, The A.V. Club, graciously answered these questions but points out that “pretty much everybody in The A.V. Club had a creative hand in these video segments.”
Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of the cool stuff we've come across recently:
We discovered a new dance craze popping up in Taiwan called "Bobee."
We tracked how the fan-anthem "Black and Yellow" as well as how parodies of that song have grown in popularity with the NFL playoffs kicking in.
And we examined how amateur weather reports were popping up in the southeast after a big winter storm. Among them was this tongue-in-cheek report that became one of the week's most-shared videos:
Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/Trends
It’s the biggest speech of the year, and next Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ET, people across the country and around the world will sit down to watch. But as President Obama delivers the 2011 State of the Union Address, which will be streamed live on YouTube along with the Republican response, you can do more than just watch the speech: you can also submit your questions for the President for an exclusive YouTube Interview that will take place just two days later, on January 27.
In fact, you can get started today. Health care. Education. Foreign policy. What would you like to ask the President about the most important issues our country faces? Go to youtube.com/askobama to submit your question now, or watch the speech on Tuesday night with your webcam or video camera nearby so that you can record and submit your question as soon as it strikes you. This year, you'll also be able to ask your question via Twitter: just include the hashtag #askobama in your Tweet. And be sure to have your say in what should be asked by voting on questions submitted by others, too.
A few suggestions before submitting your questions:
Video questions are highly preferred (though we also accept text). Videos should be about 20 seconds long and be sure to ask the question directly.
Speak clearly and try to film in a place with minimal background noise. Keep the camera as still as possible.
Feel free to be creative (use props, charts, etc.) to help your question stand out. If you have time, find an interesting backdrop that may help reinforce your message.
Submit your question early. The final deadline is Wednesday January 26 at midnight ET.
President Obama’s responses to a selection of your top-voted questions will be streamed live from the White House on youtube.com/askobama at 2:30 p.m. ET on Thursday January 27.
This interview is the first in a series of world leader interviews coming to YouTube in 2011 as part of YouTube World View. These interviews will give people around the world the chance to engage in conversation with their elected officials and other influential people from the world of business, philanthropy, technology, media and the arts. Check back on the channel in the next few months for more opportunities to participate.
You have until Wednesday January 25 at midnight ET to submit your question for President Obama. The YouTube community made history last year when the President answered your questions in the first ever citizen-powered interview of a United States president. If you didn’t get an opportunity to ask the President a question last year, make sure you don’t miss out this time -- get your submission in early.
Remember, after the President’s address you’ll have the opportunity to watch Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union as well. And within the month, we’ll be holding a similar YouTube Interview with a prominent Republican leader - more details soon.
*Update - that should read "You have until Wednesday January 26 at midnight ET to submit your question for President Obama".*
What you hear is what you get with YouTube Partners Pomplamoose. Every sound you hear in their music videos is produced by an instrument you see played in their music videos. It’s a novel idea they call the “videosong”. And, in a world with so many artificial, over-produced sounds, Pomplamoose provides refreshing covers and original music. Brands are taking notice of this authenticity, too. If you've been living in a hole for the past few months, you might have missed their Hyundai commercials over the holidays.
Continuing on their quest to make music (and musicians) more accessible, we asked Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn about how they got their start, what it’s like working with brands, and buying Etsy chandeliers to create your very own mysterious aura.
You should also tune into their live webshows on Tuesdays at 6:30pm PT at www.pomplamoose.com.
Can’t make it to Park City, Utah to mingle with independent film’s glitterati at the Sundance Film Festival this year? We’ll bring the magic to you.
To celebrate the kickoff of one of the world’s most acclaimed independent film festivals, YouTube and the Sundance Film Institute are teaming up to present a collection of past and present short films in the YouTube Screening Room. Over the next few weeks, we’ll feature:
Four career-starting short films from past Sundance Film Festivals
Four short films from past participants in the Sundance Director’s Lab
Twelve short films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
This week’s installment includes four new films from up-and-coming directors. The films’ settings range from a virtual, retro-gaming world to the very real struggles of contemporary Afghanistan.
8 Bits Witness a fight between an 8-bit superhero and a high-def boss, set in a retro-gaming world. Directed by Valere Amirault, Sarah Laufer, Jean Delaunay and Benjamin Mattern.
Andy and Zach Andy tries to set up a new life when his roommate and best friend, Zach, moves out. Directed by Nick Paley.
Skateistan: To Live and Skate in Kabul Skateistan is an oasis where children can be children and build the kind of cross-cultural relationships that Afghanistan needs for future stability. Directed by Orlando von Einsiedel.
The High Level Bridge Trevor drops his camera from Edmonton's High Level Bridge in memory of those who have jumped. Directed by Trevor Anderson.
Check out the Screening Room again on January 27, 2011, and February 3, 2011, to catch the next two installments of short films from this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Kinzie Kramer, Associate Product Marketing Manager, just watched Battle of the Bands
You may have noticed we've been experimenting with a new YouTube homepage. After countless user studies and community surveys, one thing came in loud and clear: the homepage in its current form doesn’t mean much to most of you, and could be more personally relevant. So the goal of this experiment was to put more of an emphasis on "videos for you.”
To pave the way for this experiment, we removed some of the less-used modules such as "Videos Being Watched Now.” Then we moved modules like "Spotlight" and "Featured Videos" over to the right side. All of these changes were to make room for a combined list of personally relevant videos made up of recommendations for you, your subscriptions activity, and videos being shared by your friends.
Recently we opened up the experimental homepage to anyone who wanted to try it out. Millions of users opted in and now have this new version set as their homepage. Many of the people who tried the experimental homepage filled out our feedback form. While not everyone loved it, most people thought the new homepage was better than the old homepage.
Here are some of the enhancements offered by the new homepage (logged in users only):
Increased focus on videos that matter to you (subscriptions, friend's sharing, recommendations)
You can easily filter your homepage to show only the latest uploads from your subscriptions
Don't miss anything; if a channel uploads four videos in a day, you’ll see all four - instead of just the latest video
Quick access to the inbox when you have new messages or comments
Knows what you have seen (videos you've watched are grayed out)
Remove any video (hover and click the "x" button)
Although some of you might miss some features, we think this latest version is a step in the right direction. It’s simpler, more personal, and it makes it easier to follow and watch the videos that are meaningful to you. So today we're rolling out this new homepage for all logged in users worldwide.
We're dedicated to making YouTube the best place for you to discover and share great videos. Please send us your feedback in a video, in the forums, on this blog or on Twitter. As always, we’ll be listening and taking your feedback very seriously.
This Friday, you’re in control of the action for HP ePrint Live, a two-hour live improv comedy show streaming on YouTube. Host Rob Riggle (The Hangover, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart) and actors from the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre will act out skits based on viewer suggestions sent to one of the printers on stage, performing it live in front of millions of YouTube viewers.
On the day of the show (January 21) send a note, a picture, a song, a drawing (whatever strikes you!) to the HP Web-connected printer at ideas@hpeprintlive.com and actors from the UCB Theatre will use the ideas to create original comedy in real time. Maybe you want to see what would happen if humans lived underwater, or perhaps you have a great photo of your dog and you want to know what his stream of consciousness sounds like. However hilarious, twisted or downright goofy your idea is, simply ePrint it and watch www.youtube.com/hpeprintlive, on January 21, 3 p.m. ET, to see it come to life. Include your Twitter and you might just get a special shout out! If your submission is chosen, you’ll receive a link to your personal video over email. The skit will also be posted online at the HP ePrint Live YouTube channel and on HP’s Home Facebook page.
Fear not, if your submission is not selected, keep sending through January 26. Members of UCB Theatre will continue to accept ideas to create custom comedy shorts period, with a different theme and setting each day, including the home (day 1), office (day 2), school (day 3), travel (day 4) and “anything goes” (day 5). These will all be posted on the channel just as soon as they are created.
Start thinking about what scenarios you’d like to see performed on the show. ePrint them on January 21 and don’t forget to tune in LIVE.
Diposting oleh
Greatest on Selasa, 18 Januari 2011
Just after I published an article regarding the "related-content.g?q=" 404 error, a lot of webmasters have been asking questions about it both at the Google Webmaster and Blogger Help Forums to know if there was a solution. Update: It does look like that Blogger has finally taken action. They have disallowed the /related-content.g?q= in robots.txt file. So, it is no longer anything worth worrying about.
Some of them have even asked the same question by commenting on this blog. Despite knowing a solution, I did not tell them because of my reluctance and hope that Google would probably solve this error, which seems very unlikely (like most errors on Blogger).
The reason for my reluctance was that I was not sure if it was in agreement with Blogger's Terms of Service, violating which, will surely result in a blog being deleted. I did not wish that Google deleted other people's blogs due to me. Today, I re-read the Terms of Service and came to know that it did not mention anything about this "hack". Although, it is in Google's discretion to change the terms any time to suit their needs, it is probably safe for now to remove the script causing the error. To remove the script, follow the steps given below.
How to remove the related-content.g?q= 404 Error
Login to Blogger.
Click on Design.
Click on Edit HTML.
Search for </head> in your template.
After locating it paste the following code immediately after the </head>.
<!-- <body><div></div> -->
Click on Save Template.
An error message like the one given in the image might be shown
Click on Delete Widgets.
What does this do? This removes the Blogger NavBar widget which is the root cause of this 404 error. As the new script inserted to Blogger blogs is added in this widget, removing this would remove the JavaScript too and would thus stop our blogs from linking to non-existent 404 pages.
How long does it take to work? Well, it depends on your blog's crawl rate. If your blog gets crawled fast, Webmaster Tools might remove this error in a week. If that is not the case, it can take up to a month.
P.S: As an additional benefit, deleting the Navigation Bar widget will reduce the number of errors and warnings in your blog's HTML validation through W3C.
The internet isn't just a great way to shop without leaving your home, it's also a great way to save money without the tedious, old-fashioned task of clipping coupons. With a little smart shopping and a few extra resources, the internet's vast stretches can save your budget and even give you a little extra room to "splurge" after you've got all of the essentials covered.
Online Coupon Sites
This might be the most popular way to save money when shopping on the internet. Coupon sites, like Valpak (Valpak works only for US residents, there are other websites for other countries), are all over the internet and they rely on user contributions to display a list of coupon codes for each online shopping website out there. These coupon codes range from small savings, like free shipping on your order, to bigger deals that will save you between 15 percent and 50 percent on orders at certain websites.
It's as easy as copying and pasting the special code into the website's "promotional code" box when you begin the checkout process. You'll see your savings automatically, and it will probably elicit a sigh of accomplishment. There's no greater feeling than finding a "secret" coupon code that saves you big bucks in an online purchase.
Buy Your Basics Online
You can actually buy everything from your deodorant to your toothpaste and other necessities online. You can even find products online that have been discontinued from store shelves -- and you can buy them in bulk!
These websites are officially affiliated with the Rite Aid chain of convenience stores, but the online prices are far below what you would pay in the retail store. The good news is, first-time buyers can save 20 percent on their first order as well as score free shipping. And every purchase earns a 5 percent cash back reward that can be redeemed quarterly. If you go through lots of toiletries, these websites can offset your costs dramatically. Consistent purchases can end up landing you $20 or more in cash back rewards, and at these prices, that's good enough for a month's worth of free shampoo, toothpaste, and even vitamins.
Sign Up for Auto-Refill Services
Online storefronts like Soap.com are not alone in offering "automatic refill" subscriptions for the products you buy regularly throughout the year. Nutritional stores like GNC also offer this convenient service, and subscribing can land you free shipping and even regular discounts on products.
When you sign up for an automatic refill process, you give the site permission to charge your debit or credit card automatically at the same time every month. The products you've elected to buy each month are then automatically shipped to your home address without you intervening at all. You'll receive an email notification that the products are on their way as well as tracking information -- and that's all you'll need!
Because this service is brand new, many companies are encouraging customers to sign up by offering free shopping on automatic refill orders. You won't have to scour the internet for coupon codes anymore, just by signing up. Additionally, many companies offer up to a 15 percent discount on automatically-refilled orders, which can saver you further amounts from the already-discounted prices you'll find online. And, let's face it, everyone needs a regular refill of toothpaste, or shampoo, or their daily multivitamin. It really is a no-brainer to sign up and get started.
The ways to save money online are as numerous as the websites that populate the internet, but these are a few great ways to save on basic items that will allow you to spend more money on "fun" things, like clothes, vacations, and dining. Of course, those luxuries can also be found at great savings online -- but that's for another time.
This is a guest post submitted by Ty Cobb. Ty Cobb is a social media and guest blogging enthusiast. He enjoys playing, writing and listening to all kinds of music and connecting with people.
On Tuesday, January 18 at 9 p.m. ET, Canada’s sprawling indie rock collective Broken Social Scene kicks off their Winter 2011 tour with a live performance at NYC’s Terminal 5 -- and you’ll be able to watch the show as it happens on http://www.youtube.com/bowerypresents (brought to you by Lexus).
The group will also be curating the YouTube homepage on Tuesday, with a mix of videos that are as surprising and eclectic as the band itself.
Who are Broken Social Scene? Maybe a better question would be, who aren’t they? Formed as a loose collaborative of Toronto musicians/friends back in 1999, the shifting lineup has looked like a who’s who of indie rock -- with Leslie Feist as perhaps the brightest star in the constellation. (Check out this playlist featuring the band’s other projects.) If you don’t know Broken Social Scene’s music, think Arcade Fire and The Postal Service, with a dash of Sonic Youth.
Multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning started the group in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the group really started to take off with the release of You Forgot It In People. On that album, the group had swollen to 11 members, and the collective crafted a gregarious -- some might say bombastic -- album whose woozy grace seemed perpetually on the verge of falling apart. Fans found it utterly engrossing. The album won a Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year, and suddenly Broken Social Scene were the buzz band, garnering accolades from Pitchfork on down.
Broken Social Scene has always been based on a notion of fragility; it’s built into its very name. Some have compared the group to 1970s-era Fleetwood Mac for its, um, complicated interpersonal dynamics -- all of which seems inevitable in a group that (by some counts) includes 31 friends/musicians among its ranks. The band took a hiatus after wrapping up a massive tour in 2005, filling the relative void with a couple of Broken Social Scene Presents albums.
But a creative force this potent couldn’t stay dormant. Broken Social Scene came back together for 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record, another ambitious collaborative effort that saw early members like Feist,Amy Millan and Emily Haines returning to the fold. It’s a gorgeous piece of work, as evinced by the opening track “World Sick.”
Meanwhile, the obsession with Broken Social Scene and its mythic qualities has grown. Writer and friend of the band Stuart Berman authored an oral history of BSS called This Book Is Broken (see an interview with Berman here) and there is also a feature film, This Movie Is Broken, which juxtaposes live footage of the group with a fictional love story.
As Broken Social Scene continues to evolve, we say if it ain’t Broken, fix it.
Sarah Bardeen is a longtime music obsessive, critic and journalist who joined YouTube recently as Music Community Manager. She recently watched “ASA - <> [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO HD].”
January is a generally a cold month, so rather than getting out your winter coat and travelling to a partner meetup, we thought we’d kick off 2011 with live event on the YouTube channel. This meetup will be product-focused and near and dear to many of your wallets: we’ll cover how to make money on YouTube, advertising options, and some new innovations coming your way soon.
YouTube Product Manager Phil Farhi will be leading the discussion, so make sure to round up all your money- and ad-related questions on the YouTube channel now. You’ve got until Monday, January 17, to submit your question, and then we encourage you to watch what Phil’s got to say during the live event.
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Time: 2 p.m. PST Web address: Live streaming at www.youtube.com/YouTube
During the stream, you’ll be able to ask follow-up questions via Twitter using the hashtag #YTPartner. We’ll monitor these tweets and address as many questions as we can during the live stream.
Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural trends on YouTube as they develop. Right now, we want to highlight some of the cool stuff we've come across recently:
We found evidence from around the country of a little known pants-less holiday.
For the third year running, we're proud to launch the Ad Blitz Pre-Game program, sponsored by Chrysler. Ad Blitz is a one-stop shop for anything and everything related to the NFL Playoffs, the Super Bowl and Super Bowl parties.
This includes, but is not limited to, NFL Playoff coverage from Fox Sports, trash talk from our most colorful sports vloggers and party recipes and planning tips from our best chefs.
And, of course, on Super Bowl Sunday come to the Ad Blitz channel to view and vote upon the best Super Bowl commercials that aired on TV during the game. Your votes will determine the best ad, which will then appear on our homepage on Saturday, February 19.
Andrew Bangs, Sports Manager, recently watched "Onion SportsDome".
Starting today, we’re welcoming VEVO’s extensive library of official music videos from artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Kanye West and U2 onto the YouTube 2.0 app for Android, available around the world. To watch these videos your mobile phone needs to be running Android 2.2 (Froyo). Although the latest YouTube native app comes pre-installed on many Android 2.3 devices (like the Nexus S), you can also install it manually by searching for 'YouTube' in Android Market and downloading the latest version.
We’re also launching several new features to make it easier to discover and enjoy music videos on mobile:
Music videos are now clearly marked with a ‘music note’ badge
While enjoying the video you can read ‘artist bio’
It’s easy to discover more tracks from the same artist using ‘artist tracks’ tab
You’ll find similar cool bands on the ‘related artists’ tab
In addition to these features, tens of thousands of YouTube partner videos will also now have pre-roll ads appear on the YouTube 2.0 app for Android. This not only expands distribution opportunities for partners like VEVO, but also opens up more revenue to partners distributing their content to mobile. Although we’ve tested ads on mobile over the years, this is our largest step in mobile monetization to date.
The mobile ad market is growing fast and set to surpass $1 billion in the US in 2011. We also have a new milestone to share - YouTube now exceeds 200 million views a day on mobile, a 3x increase in 2010.
As the world goes mobile and more people watch videos on their smart phones, we expect more partners will take advantage of these new mobile advertising capabilities and make more of their content available across more devices.
Our next step is to let partners run ads more broadly across other mobile platforms, beyond Android native apps.
Diposting oleh
Greatest on Selasa, 11 Januari 2011
The new Blogger Search is still in development stages and Google as always is absolutely quiet on this. However, going by the source of code of the JavaScript inserted in all Blogspot blogs, one can conclusively find a sure shot way of getting included in the Blogger related content Search and benefit from the traffic received.
A fragment of JavaScript added to Blogspot blogs is as follows:-
function showRelatedContent(args) { var el = document.getElementById('related-iframe'); if (el.parentNode.style.display != 'none') { el.parentNode.style.display = 'none'; document.onclick = showRelatedContent.prevOnClick; return; }
Looking at it, one can obviously see a mention of the "parentNode.style.display !=none" referring to the iframe of Blogger's Navigation Bar which most of the blogspot users "hide" using the css #navbar-iframe{display:none}. So, it appears that blogs that have disabled the Navigation Bar will not show related content. Moreover, going by some preliminary tests, it appears that Blogger checks which blogs have disabled the Navigation bar and on its basis decides which blogs to include in Blogger related content search. This is much similar to the behavior shown by the Next Blog feature in Blogger's Navigation Bar which also only links to blogs that have shown the Navigation Bar. However, for non-competitive search queries, blogs without the Navigation Bar also appear in results. It also appears that recently updated content is given preference in terms of ranking.
So ultimately, you must unhide the Blogger Navigation Bar if you wish to get included in Blogger Search results. So, it appears that Blogger Team is now playing smart to force people into showing the Navigation Bar.
After a lot of speculation over what "related-content.g?q=" was, I have finally come to know why a new piece of javascript was added to all the blogs hosted on blogger. Amazingly, it turned out to be much bigger a feature than I expected. The above mentioned JavaScript is added by Blogger to create a Blogspot only search engine to enable users to search updates made by blogspot users related to a particular topic. As an additional plus, it also displays realtime Twitter updates made by Twitter users on any particular topic. It also displays related videos probably from Youtube.
Edited Image of Google Search. Not actual Blogger Search
The search results page at this time is nothing but a crude HTML page clearly implying that the Blogger team is still developing it. Moreover, lack of custom styling indicates that there is still a lot of time before this feature goes public. Videos provided are still not linked but show only a thumbnail image. Going by the source code, Google real-time search has been used to display Twitter updates. Links on the result pages are dofollow without any involvement of JavaScript of any kind. Moreover, related-content.g is not disallowed in Blogger.com robots.txt implying that PageRank would certainly pass onto these links.
This is how Blogger Related Content Search Results look like right now for the search term "Blogger"
To see this in action, type http://blogger.com/related-content.g?q=[Your Search Query] in your address bar. e.g. If you wish to see content related to this blog, go to http://blogger.com/related-content.g?q=tweakandtrick.blogspot.com.
Update: 7/7/2011: The related content page mentioned above now returns a 404 error.
Update:15/3/2011: Yesterday on the Blogger Buzz blog, Chang Kim, Product Manager at Blogger posted this:-
We’ll also be showcasing our new content discovery feature that lets you uncover interesting and related content based on the topics of the blog you’re currently reading.
This is how Blogger's Related post and media search will look
So, now it is official that such a feature is surely going to be added in Blogger. Also, Blogger is going to get an overhauled Wordpress like layout in the upcoming months. Still feel you should be on Wordpress? Nah!
Your votes are in. The professionals have had their say. And now, 101 people from more than 30 countries around the world are heading to Sydney Opera House to perform together in March as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011.
These final 101 outstanding musicians — who range in age from 14 to 49, and hail from five different continents — have emerged from the 336 finalists selected last month by partner orchestras worldwide (including London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and Sydney Symphony). Your votes on those finalists then helped artistic advisor Michael Tilson Thomas and composer Mason Bates settle on the final line-up.
Among the final group is a vuvuzela-fixated trombonist from Germany, an Arizona-based clarinetist who has never left the U.S. and a Guzheng player from China, whose instrument is one a lot of the world has never seen or heard before. They’ll come together from March 14 to prepare for a final performance on Sunday, March 20, which will be streamed live to the world on YouTube.
We want to open up every stage of the orchestra process. We called for auditions from around the world on YouTube and were blown away by the amazing videos we received in response; the YouTube community voted on their favorites and visited the channel in their millions; and now we’re inviting you to join the winning musicians as they begin their creative journey to Sydney. We’ll post their videos and behind-the-scenes footage of the orchestra — from rehearsal and master classes to performance — to the YouTube Symphony channel, and to our mobile apps (which you can download on the Android Market by searching for 'YouTube Symphony Orchestra' or Apple App Store). In March we’ll start broadcasting from Sydney, so tune in!
Diposting oleh
Greatest on Minggu, 09 Januari 2011
Social networking has become one of the best methods of building a strong customer and fan base and has proven to be one of the strongest online marketing methods. The latest sensations among the social networking sites are Facebook and Twitter which help online marketers take their products to customers.
Even though there are many marketing methods of increasing the number of followers in Twitter and Facebook, you can use some online tools for the purpose. Here are a few online tools that are available for better social networking.
Hootsuite Hootsuite is a brand management service which publishes material not only on Facebook and Twitter, but also on other social networking sites like MySpace, Linkedln and Foursquare. You can also use this tool from your iPhone or any BlackBerry device. You can use this service for free or pay $5.99 for thirty days and have history and stats stored too.
TweetDeck TweetDeck is an application for social networking and is said to be one of the most popular Twitter applications where users can have the program split into two columns for displaying different features. It was previously aimed at Twitter alone but later began supporting the other social networking sites too.
MediaFunnel You can manage your presence in social media using Media Funnel. Navigation and online moderated conversations are also possible with this tool. Apart from managing your presence, MediaFunnel can also be used for the management of the social media updates of your team members. Other features of this tool are combining many social media networks, scheduling tweets, sending SMS and email alerts.
Seesmic Seesmic is known for its credibility and can help you manage a number of social networking sites. The advantage of using this application is that it has a well organized dash board and with it, tweets, retweets and direct messages can be sorted. You can also send direct messages and update statuses from a single page.
SocialKik This is one of the best services that can help you increase the number of followers and fans on Facebook and Twitter. You are required to pay according the number of fans or followers you want to have.
Note from Akhilesh: It appears that SocialKik sells fans and followers. Something I am totally against of. So, I would advise you not to try it.
This is a guest post submitted by Kendria Chris. Kendria is a keen user of social networks and a graduate in computer science. She has written various articles on different types of computer viruses.
Check it out, people! This month’s “On the Rise” nominees are in -- and we need your help to choose a winner.
Just to remind you how this works: we identify a handful of channels who’ve rapidly increased their subscriber base in the last 30 days but haven’t yet hit the 100,000 mark. You watch their videos, and then vote for your favorite in the top right-hand corner of this blog. You have until noon PT on January 14, 2011, to make your choice. Once we have a winner, we’ll give them a big leg up with a feature on the YouTube homepage and videos page, as well as love on Facebook and Twitter. Past winners emilynoel83 and justjesse197 more than doubled the number of subscribers gained during the month of their spotlight versus the previous month, and Emily is close to hitting the 100,000 subscriber milestone herself.
And now, in alphabetical order, here are the nominees for the homepage spotlight on January 22:
Michael Aranda You never quite know what you’re going to get with a Michael Aranda video: one minute he’s dropping knowledge, the next he’s freak-dancing -- or turning his car into an art project.
Luke Conard Catchy pop songs. A sense of humor. Adorably goofy videos....What’s not to like about Luke Conard?
Tori Kelly Tori Kelly’s just 18 years old, but she plays piano and guitar and sings like nobody’s business. Check out one of her original songs.
Josh Sundquist Josh Sundquist has quite a personal story: overcoming childhood cancer and a leg amputation to become an athlete, inspirational speaker and author. Check out his sweet and affecting animations.
2010 was a breakout year for video advertising, which is an unmitigated good thing for advertisers and viewers alike. As audiences, platforms, channels, and devices continue to fragment into ever-more-specific niches, earning people’s attention has become ever more challenging. To find audiences and break through all the noise, brands must create content that people seek out, love, and share with others.
On the coattails of YouTube Rewind, which highlighted the most viewed videos of 2010 - we took an informal poll of our team and reporters in the industry to find out their favorite YouTube ads of the year. Here they are, in no particular order:
2010 was Old Spice’s year. Released to YouTube a few days before the Super Bowl, Isaiah Mustafa’s shower-transcending, horse-sitting manliness had already attracted a fan base before the Saints and Colts took the field. This new franchise culminated in Old Spice’s Twitter response campaign, attracting more than 100 million views in fewer than 10 days. Smells good!
Experts say: “The challenge for advertisers in social media is keeping up with the real-time nature of it. Old Spice provided the blue print on how to do this with a video blitz that perfectly fit with how the Web operates nowadays.” - Brian Morrissey, AdWeek
Lesson learned: Old Spice spent millions developing the character, and then took advantage of this brand equity by speaking directly to key influencers, who then got their followers to tune in.... for free!
Who was your favorite official sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup? If you said Nike, you’re not alone. You’re also not an expert on global sports sponsorships, because Nike didn’t sponsor the Cup. All they did was hijack world soccer with a glorious, 3-minute mini-epic directed by Alejandro Iñárritu.
Lesson learned: It’s hard to imagine a 3-minute commercial running during a major sporting event, but online it attracted an enormous audience that accelerated via sharing.
Vaguely reminiscent of the revolutionary Burger King Subservient Chicken, this campaign for correction tape product Tipp-Ex hands control of the story to the user, with dozens of funny outcomes that reward experimentation and discovery.
Experts say: "One of 2010's greatest examples of interactive ads." - Ben Parr, mashable Lesson learned: Interactivity + video = a truly immersive, memorable, and sharable experience.
Ads are definitely content when they include interactive zombie attacks. When you feature clever product placement and a narrative viewers can participate in, it's advertising gold.
Experts say: “With the increased sophistication of YouTube annotations has come a greater number of interactive adventures, and this branded experience sponsored by the New Zealand pizza company Hell Pizza is one of the better ones I've seen. Not only is it executed well, but a zombie comedy fits perfectly with Hell Pizza's brand -- and really makes you crave a hot slice.” - Liz Shannon Miller, NewTeeVee
Lesson learned: YouTube video annotations create new opportunities for fun, turning the video viewing experience into an adventure.
Awwwww, yeah. Decidedly un-hip-hop people rapping about their un-hip-hop lives is nothing revolutionary, but the execution on this campaign for Toyota’s Sienna minivan was a cooling salve for Gen X parents struggling to embrace the cul-the-sac.
Lesson learned: Perhaps the perfect example of a brand creating content that people will seek out, love, and share.
Experts say: “We loved Pixar's phony retro toy ads promoting Toy Story 3. The ‘Huggin' Toys’ videos were made to resemble toy ads circa 1983 -- complete with VHS tape static crawling along the bottom of the screen.” - Zach Rodgers, ClickZ
Lesson learned: The Toy Story franchise has been the most critically and financially successful animated movie series of all time, mostly because of its ability to appeal both to kids and to parents. Kids who grew up in the Reagan Years are powerless against the nostalgia appearl of this very convincing faux-retro spot .
These are, of course, just a tiny taste of what brands and agencies did with online video in 2010, and we didn’t even touch the best creative in other languages. We’re hoping this list gets people inspired about the creative possibilities.
In December, we announced that “Life in a Day,” a documentary film directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald, produced by Ridley Scott, and filmed on July 24, 2010 by thousands of YouTube users around the world, was finished—and would have its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on January 27.
Today we’d like to share with you the first in a series of clips we’ll release between now and the world premiere. In this clip, beautifully shot by Toniu Xou and Patricia Marinez del Hoyoa of Spain, a young girl climbs a human castle in the small town of San Jaume dels Domenys in the Spanish province of Tarragona.
If watching this clip gets you excited for more, subscribe to the Life in a Day channel to be automatically updated when new clips are released.
And, most importantly, don’t forget to tune into the world premiere of “Life in a Day” at 5pm PT on Thursday, January 27, to see the 1,125 clips—out of more than 80,000 submitted—that made it into the final film.
Live in an incompatible time zone? Not to worry. The film will be re-broadcast at 7pm on Friday, January 28, in your local time zone, whatever that may be. The film will be closed captioned and subtitled on YouTube in 25 languages, and will provide an additional option for audio description (AD) in English. This will be your only chance to see “Life in a Day” before it is released later in 2011, so don’t miss out!
And for those of you who want to experience Sundance even more intimately, check out the Life in a Day channel daily from January 24 to January 27 to see on-the-ground updates from Kevin Macdonald and a group of contributors to the “Life in a Day” project whom Kevin has invited to join him for the world premiere. You can also submit questions on the channel during that time for a chance to take part in a live Q&A with Kevin and the 20 contributors following the world premiere.
Just after Representative John Boehner was sworn in as the 61st Speaker of the House earlier today, heand new House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issamade an early move to make the activities of the House of Representatives more accessible to citizens via YouTube. Starting in this 112th Congress, all committee hearings of the House Oversight committee will be available on YouTube, on a new channel called HouseResourceOrg. This is the first congressional committee to ever put all of its hearings online, and the new Speaker hopes it’s the first step towards getting all House committee hearings available to all citizens on the web.
This was made possible via a Google Project 10^100 grant made to Carl Malamud at PublicResource.org, who will be working with the House to access and upload all of the hearings that the Oversight Committee holds each week. PublicResource.org will also upload hundreds of hours of archived content. Where transcripts are available from the House, they'll be uploaded along with the videos, using YouTube's auto-timing capabilities to automatically create accurate captions through voice recognition. Thanks to the reuse of these uploaded transcripts, PublicResource.org videos with captions will be fully searchable, and the captions can be auto-translated into over 50 languages.
Here’s an example of the types of videos you’ll see on the new channel – if you go to the video page, you can see the interactive transcript in the upper-right hand corner of the clip:
Today while looking at Google Webmaster Tools, I came across some 404 pages on Technology Inspired. Being curious, I proceeded to see which pages does Google reports as "Not Found" and I came across a strange URL, one which I have never seen associated with a blogger blog. The URL which Google reported as not being found was as follows:-
When I checked on to see which pages linked to this page, I was surprised to see that almost all of the pages on this blog had links pointing to this page. As I did not remember placing such a link, I checked the source code of my blog. Strangely, I discovered a new bit of javascript added to it. The script which was added is as follows:-
<script type="text/javascript">
function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener("load", function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } function showRelatedContent() { var el = document.getElementById('related-frame'); if (el.style.visibility = 'visible') { return; }
// Hide related-content dropdown when clicking anywhere but on it. document.onclick = function() { var el = document.getElementById('related-frame'); if (el.style.visbility != 'hidden') { el.style.visibility = 'hidden'; } document.onclick = showRelatedContent.prevOnClick; }; }
</script>
Anyone having basic knowledge of Java would understand that this code is for generating contextually related posts for blogger. So, this indicates that after launching the mobile supported themes, the Blogger development team is finally off to add another new and often demanded feature in blogger, and gladly it is one that will help bloggers to reduce bounce rate and display more appropriate related posts.
Investigating further, I have come to know that each blog hosted on blogger has received this new bit of code implying that this feature would be made public any time soon.
Meanwhile, you can use the related posts widget I have employed here.
Steps:- 1. Just, copy and paste this CSS in your design before </head>.
