YouTube is making it a whole lot easier to spot videos that are currently popular on the site.
The new e-map will offer gender and age profiles, shares and views. A scroll bar shows the number of regions where the video is popular.
It’s difficult to believe that YouTube is just eight years old and is now one of the major communications vehicles in the world. Congratulations, YouTube! You have certainly changed our lives.
As a senior American, I can honestly say that the last few years of my life have been extremely fascinating because of all of the advances in technology. I love when I hear other seniors remark that they are thrilled to be witnessing all of the innovation as well. I wonder why other contemporaries don’t feel as fortunate.
YouTube alone is a wonderment. I use YouTube for everything, from creating my own channel (lwhitman) to researching every imaginable topic. I don’t know why, but I am always amazed that when I type in a topic in the search box, the greatest reference videos appear. I couldn’t ask for better explanations.
YouTube wants to make lots of money. First sign of maturity. Google is tired of financing it. My sources tell me that the financials are still being worked out but YouTube wants paid subscriptions for individual channels.
YouTube wants content providers to offer channels that subscribers would have to pay anywhere between $1 and $5 a month. Of course, this would only hold true for content companies that have already demonstrated the ability to build and maintain a large presence on the video site (aka multichannel networks like Fullscreen, Machinima, and Maker Studios).
YouTube is also considering charging for content libraries and live events.
Revenue will be shared between all parties.
This is still only in discussions. Sounds like a great opportunity for video producers to make some money.
I am going to let the videos speak for themselves with a little comment from me.
Have you ever questioned the intelligence of the Chinese?
SphereTones is a visual instrument in Google Play.
HP certified trainer shows us how easy it is to wrap a scooter with the new HP Air Release Cast Vinyl Wrap film, printed with HP Latex technology.
Surfing a 100-foot wave in Portugal is his idea of fun.
The most dangerous places on Earth.
I love dark meat Turkey. So does Larry David. I found this out because Kara Swisher of AllThingsd.com shared the video below with her readers. It’s pretty funny, especially if you come from Brooklyn.
I want to dedicate this blog post to Elliott Lampert, my friend in Miami, who had to spend Thanksgiving in the hospital. You will be out soon. Get some good rest. Thank you Mindi for keeping us informed. I finally see the virtue of texting.
Quite a Turkey Day.
I really have nothing against Larry King other than he seems to fall asleep after he asks his guests a question. I have watched him ask a question many times, get a provocative answer that desperately needed further discussion, and just like a robot, move on to the next point on his cheat sheet.
When he left CNN after 25 years, I thought that was that. The old timers were getting weeded out in favor of all the digital newbies who were going to give us a new prospective on the news.
I was feeling bad for the likes of Larry, and a little for myself, who desperately want to remain relevant in a world dominated by kids who are young enough to be our grandchildren.
Then came the news.
At age 78, King is becoming a dominant force in the new digital age of Internet TV. Backed by one of the richest men in the world, Carlos Slim, a Mexican financier, Larry King has a new talk show on the Ora online network.
A long time business acquaintance of mine, Jefferson Graham, of USA Today, just did a print and video interview with Larry that explains it all.
Click here. Give it a few seconds to appear.
For those of you who want the info quickly, let me spell it out. Larry is now pioneering the Internet even though he doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, answer an email, or post a tweet.
Jefferson says Larry now has Larry King Now on Hulu, Monday through Thursday, and he’s still attracting big-name talent. Guests have included Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, actor Matthew McConaughey, and old friends Regis Philbin and Betty White.
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Larry also makes his debut this week on YouTube with live political analysis of the Republican convention (youtube.com/politics), and the Democratic convention next week.
He has no idea what twitter is but has 2.5 million followers. His wife and assistant handle his digital correspondence.
I don’t want to spoil the video for you but he does a good job of defending his digital inabilities, something about providing a personal touch. You judge for yourself!
I am not sure what NBC and the International Olympics Committee were thinking this weekend, but many high profile, online digital writers kept posting stories about how aggravated they were with the TV broadcast time delay from London. Mashable and Tech Crunch, considered to be the Bibles of the digital world, were among the first to write editorials on what they considered to be a major communications faux paux.
The main complaint being, Twitter and Facebook users from Europe were posting up-to-the-minute news from the ground or from their TV sets — Americans were watching outdated TV information about competitions that already took place. One prime example was Ryan Seacrest’s interview with Michael Phelps about how prepared he was for the first swim competition. He had already lost!
Members of the media felt NBC delayed their broadcast so that their advertisers would get the biggest audiences in the evening. The Internet marketing gurus felt they should have broadcast the Olympics live, then replayed it again in the evening for the prime time crowd.
Another insult to the digital world was the Olympic videos posted to the YouTube site by spectators at the live events for everyone in other time zones to see. Many blog sites and newspapers picked up those videos for their own use (a common and acceptable practice) only to find out minutes later that they were gone and replaced by the following message,“This video contains content from the International Olympic Committee, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.”
Tech Crunch reported “While most of the rest of the world — or at least Europe — was watching the ceremony live, U.S. audiences were held hostage by NBC, which holds the rights to the games here. Rather than broadcasting the biggest event of the Games live as it happened, NBC decided it would air the ceremony on a tape delay, to capture a larger overall audience.”
Tech Crunch also pointed out that there is nothing new about tape delays, however, “they do seem archaic at a time when online video and social media bring an air of immediacy to live events. The existence of the NBC Olympics Twitter account is evidence of this, but the account seems totally misused in this case: NBC live tweeted the whole ceremony, with no apparent sense of irony around the fact that its target audience couldn’t actually watch the events it was describing. Instead of building excitement around the ceremony, and engaging with its viewers, all NBC ended up doing was frustrating its audience —the people who care most about watching the thing.”
A Mashable Op-Ed piece said, “NBC and the IOC’s attempt to control the flow of content and information failed almost immediately as participants and audience members started tweeting and Instagramming and, worse yet, at least one website started streaming pristine video live from the event.” Here’s what really galls me. A major portion of the opening ceremony festivities was devoted to a tribute for the Internet and social networking. It was all about how the Internet connects us and lets us communicate, how social media influences our lives. To illustrate, the IOC used the charming story of a young couple meeting and then using a variety of digital and social media to stay connected. The IOC hammered home the message by featuring — Tim Berners-Lee. The father of the Internet.”
Amazing how all of the big guns, especially the social media department at NBC, couldn’t or wouldn’t predict this snafu. As Tech Crunch says in their headline, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
This happens to me often.
I enter a party and someone in the room rushes up to me and says one of two things. “If you are going to video this event Lois, you can’t put my grandchild on YouTube. My son is a very important company executive who has to deal with a lot of undesirables. The face of his child cannot be exposed for the world to see. We are afraid of terrorism or kidnapping.”
Or the next scenario is………….”Lois,” cough cough, “As you can see, I am not supposed to be at this party in the first place and I am not supposed to be in the company of so and so. I know that you like to take a lot of videos. I really can’t be on YouTube or any video you mail out to friends.”
If you think I am making this stuff up, think again. Either some people are so paranoid, or they really think I am not trustworthy. I really haven’t figured it out. All I know is that there are a few friends and family who feel they have to constantly remind me not to shoot them (I am talking video, not guns).
At first I was annoyed, but then I learned tolerance. Today, we all heard about the mass killing in Aurora, Colorado. Crazy things happen in our crazy world. People make me swear that I will not put them in an uncompromising or uncomfortable situation. It took some time, but I finally got it in my head that they needed and deserved my reassurance over and over.
Someone from YouTube must have been listening in, because just the other day the company announced a new “Face Blurring” feature “when footage requires anonymity.” It is a new tool that allows me (and you) to obscure faces within videos with a click of a button.
It is so easy that I am going to explain it in a few simple sentences. I will also show you what the video looks like before and after. I am going to embed it below. Rememmber, I explained embedding videos yesterday.
After you posted the video you took on your YouTube channel, you click on the new “Enhancements” tool. Proceed to “Additional Features” and click the “Apply” button below “Blur All Faces.” Caution: preview the video before you finalize it so you know what it looks like with the faces blurred. YouTube points out that when you save the changes to the video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. It is up to you to decide whether you delete the original video.
For all the worry warts in my life, I promise to delete the original.
Original Video
Blurred Video
I will be your sponsor. I will be your publicist. Just let me know what your idea is and if you want to do it.
It may seem like it is late in the game for you to become famous but there is still a huge chance to become a big Hollywood star either on the screen or behind it (creator, writer, producer, director). You can be the next Jay Leno, Joan Rivers, Larry King, or even Steven Spielberg.
I am serious.
YouTube announced that it is looking for original content because they want to have their own programming channels. It already started in many fields of entertainment, fashion, beauty, health, fitness, publishing, business, politics, sports, comedy, food, home design and yes, seniors. YouTube, owned by Google, is dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars to draw big talent like Madonna and Deepak Chopra to be the producers of each channel.
This news doesn’t mean that all of the billion plus worldwide users of YouTube are not going to continue to post their own videos. In fact, 60 hours of new videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Three quarters of them come from outside the United States. With that in mind, YouTube realized it is sitting on the potential to be another CBS, NBC, ABC, HGTV, or Food Network. Let’s face it, corporations, TV shows, movie production companies, music videos, already use YouTube as a distribution vehicle.
Here are two stories that explain what YouTube is going to do:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-10-29/youtube-original-programming/50997002/1
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395548,00.asp
Seniors (50-plus) are starting to post videos more than ever before. To give you an idea of what is on YouTube now in the senior market, I have included some of the most humorous videos you have ever seen. If this doesn’t make you have a hearty laugh, nothing will.
Billie Jean Dancing Senior Citizens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsLsDXXJUE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Facebook for Seniors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w5xGGfrAoo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Seniors Using Medical Marijuana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWzs6ajRYLM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Safe Sex for Seniors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pfa07ijUCE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Okay, now that I have given you some creative ideas. let me hear from you. Here is a chance to reinvent yourself. We have seen and heard it all. Let it all hang out. You can be as serious or as funny as you want. I can be your gateway to Hollywood
Unless you were hiding under a rock a few weeks ago, you had to have read that Facebook bought a smartphone photo-sharing app called Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. It made page one news in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Every TV news station covered it. What made the story so remarkable was that Instagram is a two-year-old San Francisco-based company. Yes, just founded two years ago and it was bought for a record breaking sum. That is why the Internet is so sexy and appealing to everyone who understands the dynamics of the digital world. This little baby company came up with the concept of an easy way to snap a photo, chose a filter to transform its look, and then use Instagram to post it on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.
Facebook immediately saw a synergy between its business model and what Instagram was all about. At the end of last year, Facebook reported that 250 million photos a day were being posted on its platform. In its SEC filings, Facebook also noted that its members spend nearly one-fifth of their time browsing other people’s photos. Instagram was a natural and most desired fit.
Mobile apps like Instagram are aimed at people of all ages, but I personally feel that every parent or grandparent should download the app so you can share more with members of the family and friends everywhere. This is a wonderful and fun way of keeping in touch. Now, get ready for something brand new. Internet forecaster Gary Vaynerchuk is predicting that video sharing is the next big thing. It’s also a natural. Gary is the one who predicted that 
Facebook would buy Instagram. Now Gary is saying that 
YouTube is going to buy Viddy or Socialcam because those apps allow users to shoot or capture a video, edit it, and privately or publicly share it with the world at large. Both apps upload to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Gary is quick to point out that what Instagram did for phone-shot photos, Viddy and Socialcam are going to do for videos.
Consider yourself well informed after you click on Gary’s
video blog called The Next Wave, which appears on The Daily, the first of its kind national news publication built exclusively as an application for touch screens and emerging digital platforms. The Daily is currently available on the iPad, iPhone, and select Verizon Samsung tablets.
