The YouTube blog has put together this playlist of what YouTube users who attended last night’s CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate had to say after the debate:
46 videos in all, so take your time.
Tay Zonday’s got a new video out,and it’s not what you expect from the deep voiced YouTube viral video star.
Yeah, this time Tay’s got production values, featured rappers, dancers, and behind it all, corporate sponsorship. Dr. Pepper produced this to advertise their new Diet Cherry Chocolate limited edition flavor introduced a week ago. This is Tay’s first endorsement.
Have you tasted Cherry Chocolate? Let us know if it’s any good.
Google’s Checkout and eBay’s PayPal unit are showing off their big holiday offers, designed to get you to use their services when making your holiday purchases online.
Google Checkout is giving $5-$50 off purchases at a number of online stores. You can get:
What’s the best deal? All of them! You’ll have to figure out, based on the size of your purchase, which is the best savings for that particular item. One tip: Seperate items into multiple orders so you can get the discount multiple times.
The highest percentage discount: $10 off $30
The least useful but most exciting: Buy.com’s $10 off $10. If you’re a new customer enjoy it, everyone else just ignore. Here’s Buy.com’s page of items that are free or almost free after the discount is applied.
Potential best deal: 20% off everything at eBags. If only they sold more than bags.
PayPal’s holiday deal, I’m sad to say, tops or matches Google in almost every situation. They’re offering 20% cash back, up to $50, on purchases at 14 stores. At the same levels as Google’s offering:
I miss the good old days last year of $10 off $30 and $20 off $50. No major retailers offering that now.
Hopefully you already read my liveblog report of the Republican presidential debate, presented by YouTube and CNN, but whether you have or not, here are the top YouTube user videos used tonight:
The debate led off with this song introducing the eight candidates. It’s funny, and says it all well:
This was the first question, which sparked a huge arguement between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Rudy lost a lot of votes thanks to the term “sanctuary city” tonight, but Romney could be hurt in the long run:
The first cartoon question:
All the candidates knew this guy, who heads up a tax watchdog group:
This is the “throwing gun” question:
This was a hugely difficult question, even making my wife nervous:
Another cartoon question, and Fred Thompson briefly thought the figure in it was supposed to be him:
This gay Brigadier General asked one of the toughest questions of the night, plus he got the chance to respond from the audience:
Retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr did not disclose that he is a member of a Hillary Clinton steering committee. Anderson Cooper said afterwards that if CNN had known that beforehand they seriously would have had to consider his prominent role in the debate.
And the final, more lighthearded Yankees vs. Red Sox question:
The CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential debates are starting in a moment, and I’ll be posting updates here as they happen.
8:00: And they’re off. 8 candidates, all the questions are from YouTube videos (5,000 in all, 2,000 more than the Democrats, though there was more time due to the delay).
The candidates are not on stage, but instead the Florida governor comes out (after a very flattering introduction) to introduce them. They are:
Duncan Hunter
Ron Paul
John McCain
Fred Thompson
Rudy Guiliani
Mitt Romney
Mike Huckabee
Tom Tancredo
This does not seem to be a Ron Paul-packed crowd, as far as I could tell from the applause. You get that sometimes, the crowd acting like Paul is Jesus.
8:07: They will insist candidates stay on the question, not answer previous questions. Good luck!
8:10: What a great start! A YouTuber singing about each of the candidates.
8:11: First question is to Giuliani accusing him of making a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Giuliani answers well, that they only allowed illegal children to attend school to avoid having 70,000 people on the street when crime was bad, but gave the names of arrested immigrants to the government.
Romney’s response was devastating, that New York actually filed a lawsuit to protect its illegal status, and that you have to arrest all illegals because they are already committing a crime by being here. I may not agree with that, but it was a great answer.
8:14: Giuliani accuses Romney of hiring illegals to work on his house, Romney says he can’t check the papers of everyone who works for a contractor he hires. They are slugging it out, and my wife is loving the fight.
8:16: They refused to allow the debate to continue, until Anderson Cooper stopped them by playing another clip, also asking if candidates will pledge to veto any bill that grants amnesty to illegals. Thompson answers it well, saying they must enforce the borders and eliminate sanctuary cities, a shot at Giuliani. Then he takes a shot at Romney as a flip-flopper, and accuses Giuliani of fighting to keep New York as a sanctuary city. The words “Sanctuary City” are going to hurt Giuliani coming out of this debate.
8:21: McCain answer the question, saying that we have to work harder to get the American people to trust us after our recent failures. He refused to yield when Cooper said “time” about five times. Tancredo seems very pleased with himself, giving a speech about how everyone wants to be like him.
8:24: About Americans losing their jobs due to illegals, Tancredo answers well that there are no jobs Americans won’t work, just jobs Americans won’t do for the wages illegals will accept.
8:26: Huckabee is asked why he allowed illegals to get in-state tuition prices, but won’t allow military children from other states to get same. He says the question is misinformed, but then explains exactly how the bill would do just that. He also says the way we treat our veterans is disgraceful.
8:29: Romney strikes back, fighting with everyone on stage. He’s annoying my wife with his attack stance, but it sure is entertaining.
8:30: Question for Ron Paul, something about Paul supporters on the internet who say he believes in a conspiracy to form a North American Union of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. He says that our sovereignty is definitely under threat, and there are moves toward such a union, just like there were moves towards a European Union.
8:33: McCain asked if we need to get the government spending under control, and he says the Republicans have lost their way on limiting spending, and he agrees. He says he vetoes every pork barrel bill that crosses his desk with a veto pen he got from Ronald Reagan, and he makes the writers of that pork famous. Romney talks about it without attacking anyone, and says we need to get this under control. Giuliani says we need to have across the board cuts, no filling the jobs of government workers who retire over the coming years.
8:36: Asked about increased government spending, and about 3 government programs that would be cut. Thompson says that he would cut from the OMB’s report on 100 programs that need to be cut, cutting all of them, and reform Social Security and Medicare with individual spending accounts and re-indexing.
8:39: Paul lists 3 programs, he’d cut, and you can see the Paul supporters in the crowd getting loud. Huckabee says he’d get rid of the IRS and revamp Social Security.
8:40: Cartoon Uncle Sam asks a question about eliminating the federal income tax for a national sales tax. McCain says no. He also attacks Paul, saying Paul’s attitude of isolationism caused World War II and allowed Hitler to go to power. Lots of cheers, a few very loud boos. The audience is mostly behind McCain, although McCain broke the rules by addressing a prior issue. Paul says he is not an isolationist and has many military supporters.
8:43: Question about opposing vetoing efforts to raise taxes, and everyone says they would pledge not to raise taxes. Thompson and McCain say they pledge it to the American people, not independent groups. Tancredo (I think) says he would not raise taxes, unless there was an emergency.
8:45: Romney says he supports farm subsidies to protect our food supply and encourage new technologies. Giuliani says we can’t lower subsidies, because they are higher in Europe than here, so if we lower them without them being lowered in Europe, we can’t compete.
8:48: Giuliani asked by Anderson Cooper about something in the news today about records over security expenses when he was mayor. He says he hid nothing, that as far as he knows nothing was hid, and that’s all.
8:50: Tancredo asked about toxic toys from China, Hunter also responds. Hunter says China is cheating with the trade deficit, buying arms, and asks Americans to buy American with the Christmas shopping.
First commercial break, or it would be if a video ran by Fred Thompson didn’t so badly attack the other candidates. Cooper lets the other candidates respond. Romney says, “I was wrong” about being pro-choice many years ago. Huckabee says he barely ever rose taxes, and he cut many other taxes.
8:59: A guy with and tossing a gun asks about gun control, and Hunter (ironic, right?) answers well, and says you can’t toss guns around safely.
9:00: Giuliani asked about gun control and his record. He says they had to be aggressive to protect New York, but that Americans have the right to bear arms, and nationally we can only have loose requirements, but states have the right to be a little more strict based on their local culture. Thompson responds that gun laws in D.C. banning all firearms didn’t work, and Giuliani says he agrees that what works in New York will often not work elsewhere.
9:04: Question about what guns the candidates have. Thompson jokes, I will not tell you what guns I have, or where I keep them. McCain talks about his war experience with guns, but does not own guns. Giuliani has no guns.
9:05: Question about black-on-black crime. Romney says you need to have a mom and a dad to have values and prevent crime, and better prepare kids in inner city schools. Giuliani says Romney has a mixed record on crime, with some categories going up, some down, while his record was all successful in reducing crime, especially in inner city neighborhoods.
9:08: New topic: Abortion. Asking pro-life candidates what crime those who get abortions would be charged with. Paul says he doesn’t think women should be charged with a crime, but that he never, as a ob/gyn, saw a medically necessary abortion, and that the abortionist should be charged with a crime. However, he says it should be up to the states, not the federal government. Thompson says we need to put the right judges on the Supreme Court to change things, but that things should be like they are now.
9:09: Question: If Congress passed a federal ban on abortions, would you sign it? Giuliani says “I would probably not sign it, I would leave it up to the states to decide”. Romney says he’d love to see that kind of consensus, but it’ll never happen, and it will probably be left to the states.
9:13: Huckabee asked about the death penalty. He says he is the only one on stage who had to decide to put someone to death, and that it is a very tough decision, and explains the difference between the death penalty and abortion. The question is what would Jesus do, and Huckabee says Jesus was too smart to run for public office. Tancredo says he’d ask Jesus for advice.
9:16: Guy holds the Bible, and asks if you believe every single word. Giuliani says you can’t take every work literally, but he believes in it and reads it frequently and lets it guide him. Romney says he believes it is the word of god. Huckabee says that it is the word of god, regardless of the meaning of every word, it’s all there for a reason.
Commercial break
9:23: Question for Giuliani about Islamic terrorists. He says a small group is ruining the good name of a great religion. He says “September 11″ twice, for the first time in the debate. He says Democrats bury their head in the sand, and are afraid to even say that the terrorists are Islamic, that saying such only offends the terrorists, not the rest of normal Islamic people.
9:25: McCain says we can’t set a date for withdrawl, but that he was the only one who said Rumsfeld’s strategy was a failure, and that our current strategy is working.
9:27: Question that McCain is an expert on waterboarding, and opposes it, and whether the other oppose it. Romney says he shouldn’t debate specific methods, but opposes torture. McCain comes out fighting, and says “I’m astonished you don’t know what waterboarding is”, Romney says he does, and McCain asks how he could not be against it then. Romney clarifies that he does not want to lay out accepted an unaccepted types. McCain says we’d have to withdraw from the Geneva Convention under Romney, that we can’t be Jack Bauer. Yes, he said Jack Bauer!
9:32: Question about who’d make a long term commitment to the people of Iraq. Thompson says we shouldn’t be there forever, but as long as it takes. Paul says the best commitment is to give the Iraqi people their country back. McCain says Vietnam sent an important message to the enemy, and that Iraq will keep the terrorists from coming to our cities. Paul says our bases in other countries cause them to want to fight us. Tancredo says Paul’s idea of not going overseas is nice, but that’s not the word we live in.
9:37: Question for Giuliani about whether he is trying to use September 11 to get into the White House. He says his record, both in the Justice Department and as mayor, all before September 11, show why he should be President.
9:39: Question from a computer animated Dick Cheney, who asks if the Vice President will be allowed as much power as Cheney did. Thompson jokes he thought the animated character was him, and says that the most important thing is that the Vice President be prepared to be President. McCain says Bush had to rely on Cheney because of his limitations, but that he would not have to. My wife says McCain is very cuddly.
Last commercial break.
9:47: A retired Brigadier General says that he is openly gay, and wants to know why the armed forces cannot be allowed to serve with gays. Hunter says he agrees with Colin Powell that soldiers cannot co-exist as a unit because of the type of person who becomes a soldier and how hard it would be for them to deal with it. Huckabee says we cannot put our soldiers at risk by affecting unit cohesion.
9:49: Romney is quoted as saying that he can’t wait for the day gays can serve openly. He responds that this not the day for that. My wife is screaming at the screen, saying he’s worse than Kerry at sticking by what he says.
9:50: The soldier who asked the question gets up and says he was not given a good answer.
9:51: McCain responds, saying that those who serve right now say that the policy is working.
9:52: Question about whether candidates accept support of log cabin Republicans. Huckabee says he needs all the support he can get, and will accept it, but will not change his positions because of that.
9:53: Question by guy inside a dollar bill graphic showing social security being squandered. Thompson says we need to protect young people from being hurt by his own generation. Romney says we face so many problems, including these entitlements, and we need to take America in a new, stronger direction.
9:55: Question about space exploration and Mars. Huckabee says our lives have been greatly improved by the space program (makes a joke about people being late to the debate because they don’t have GPS), and says that Hillary Clinton should be on the first rocket to Mars. Tancredo says we have been talking about spending all night, and that we can’t afford to go to Mars.
9:58: Question about why black people don’t vote Republican. Giuliani says the party doesn’t communicate well what it has to offer, as well as improving schools for them. He says his efforts on welfare show how he can improve things for the African American community. Huckabee says he does have the support of the black community, and that he got 84% of the vote from them.
10:01: Question about the Confederate flag and what it means. Romney says that with the problems we have we shouldn’t waste our time on that, and that we face extraordinary challenges and shouldn’t be divisive like the Democrats. It’s a great answer. Thompson says that people who fly that flag are not racists, but it has a racist connotation, and we don’t need to go out of our way to bring up things like that.
10:04: Question about investing in infrastructure in this country. Giuliani says he did a good job investing in that as mayor, and that we need to make serious efforts at a sustained program over the next several generations. Paul says we are building bridges overseas and not here, and we need to get out of other countries.
10:06: McCain says he will use veto to oppose all pork barrell spending and takes a shot at Giuliani for fighting against the line item veto. Giuliani demands the chance to respond, and gets it, and says that the line item veto is unconstitutional. He also mentions that he beat Bill Clinton to do it.
10:08: Question for Paul about his chances. Paul mentions how much money he’s made, and rants about his beliefs.
10:09: Last question, for Giuliani about supporting the Red Sox. Giuliani says he always roots for the American League team, and that the Yankees won when he was mayor. Romney retorts that he is a Red Sox fan, and that he was proud when his team beat the Yankees in 2003.
And that the end of the debate. Giuliani was not perfect, but he did a good job holding as the front runner. He was hurt early on but did solidly as the debate went on. Romney attacked too much and looked desperate. Huckabee won the debate, coming off as well-tempered and with well-developed viewpoints. Thompson came off better prepared and sounded better than he has in the past. McCain came off strongly, but not necessarilly enough.
Great debate, very exciting and a great look at the views. CNN is saying that tonight was the first time any candidate made an attack ad, that being the Fred Thompson video showed midway through the debate. All in all, a great two hours of TV, and covered enough bases to give anyone a good view of the field. If you only watched one debate, this one was definitely the right one to watch.
Google Maps added some new stuff: You can now edit maps collaboratively, letting a whole bunch of people combine wiki-style to create custome MyMaps about any subject.
They’ve also junked the “Hybrid” button, which probably made no sense to new users, and replaced it with “Terrain”, which shows colored maps and elevated terrain, a unique* and visually striking view that combines roadmaps with a simulation of land types. The hybrid view isn’t gone, it’s just available as a “Labels” check box when you click the satellite view.
Image by atanas under CC license
You can also now import KML files from the Google Earth community into Google Maps.
Now, when you click on a search result in Google Maps, it will occasionally show a picture of the business. This is not a Street View image, as Barry identifies it, but an image from the Google Local Business Referrals program, where anyone can take a picture of a store, enter the details of the place, and have it added to Google Maps (and get paid $2-10).
Google Maps Mobile has a new feature: My Location. It uses the cell phone towers around your phone to determine your location whenever you press the “0″ (zero) key on your keypad or select it in the menu. It’s available now in beta at google.com/gmm for Windows Mobile, Java, Blackberry and Symbian, but not for Palm (though the webpage will eroneously invite you to download it anyway).
Here’s a video explaining it:
I tried it out on my Windows Mobile phone, and it gave me my location within 1700 meters (1.05 miles - Google, don’t use the Metric system!). It was only off by about six small blocks, but more importantly it was more than close enough for driving directions or finding local businesses, and that’s the real point. Wonderful feature, even works over wifi if you don’t have a data plan, and completely one-ups Microsoft**.
* - I say unique, but they’re not necessarilly the first with this idea. Microsoft’s Live Maps has a similar shaded 3D terrain look in its regular maps, too, and they’ve had it since August.
** - Microsoft doesn’t have anything like this feature, but they do have voice recognition for any location. So, Google has made it dead easy to find out where you are, but Microsoft has made it easy to find any place at all. Both are great features, and whoever has both first will make me a happy boy.
Fox News Porn, a website that makes fun of the high amount of sexual content on Fox News Channel by pretending the channel is a porn network, had their trailer flagged by YouTube as inappropriate for younger viewers. Trying to view the video on YouTube, by clicking this link, will get you a landing page that asks you to confirm your age before you can view the video, due to strong sexual content.
The punchline? 100% of the footage is from the most popular news channel in the country.
Take a look (it’s not exactly safe for work, but there is no nudity):
I really am amazed at this stuff. What’s the connection between Republican-biased TV news and third-rate “ACTION NEWS!” crap with T&A and car chases? Maybe we need Fox News to split into the Fox Conservative News Network and the Fox X-Treme News Network? This stuff must be turning off a good amount of Fox’s base. I know I watch it a lot less than I used to, because I used to be interested in a news network with a different point of view, but I’m not interested in hours of Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
Here’s everything that’s built up over the weekend, so we aren’t still talking old news on Wednesday:
The Google Android developer blog is up, where Google will talk about application development for its Android mobile phone platform. The Android SDK is on Google Code, along with API demos and other code samples.
You can see the Android UI as it currently exists (or rather, barely exists). It’s plain, but seems comfortable and stable with room to grow into something nice, support for touchscreens, smartphones, larger VGA screens, a Webkit-based browser, Java virtual machine, threaded (conversational) text messaging, playback of MPEG-4, h.264, MP3, and AAC file formats.
Here’s a video showing Android in action, featuring Sergey Brin’s new “hung over” look and some idea of how the UI isn’t fully realized or much in competition with the iPhone. The Google Maps app has some good ideas, the web browser looks like it can’t do anything, the history app is a nice addition, the spinning globe shows that Android can do 3D pretty cool, and Google Maps Street View is nice.
Scoble isn’t impressed. I’ll say that it has a lot of potential, but they aren’t showing enough to make me believe that any of that potential includes significant success.
Gizmodo has an interesting look at the fonts created by Ascender for Android, the Droid family of fonts (fitting name). They seem pretty clean and well thought out. You’d be surprised how important fonts are in operating system design, but if you think about it, you do spend a huge amount of time staring more at the letters than the pretty boxes, so it makes sense that Microsoft and Apple put a lot of work into getting the best fonts and font rendering techniques.
Russell Beattie did a screencast of the Android emulator in action. Take a look:
Looks like there are over 1,000 Google millionaires. Even the ex-masseuse has a million dollars in Google stock. The average employee who joined a year ago is already worth $276,000 and counting.
Larry Page, Google founder and one of the ten richest people in the country, is getting married December 8 to Lucy Southworth, his girlfriend. Richard Branson and SF mayor Gavin Newsom are expected to attend, as well as many former and current Googlers, and, via videoconference, Al Gore.
Google and GoDaddy have teamed up on Google Webmaster Tools. GoDaddy customers will automatically have their sites submitted to Google Sitemaps (and thus rank better and fresher, without any effort) and a customized version of Google’s Webmaster Tools in their control panel.
Google Notebook now has a mobile version.
Google changed the area in AdSense ads that can be clicked by the user, from pretty much the whole ad space to just the title and URL. Publishers are worried that the move, which is really supposed to just decrease accidental clicks, will cost them regular clicks, too. Early feedback is that the effect on earnings is minimal. My clickthrough rate is pretty consistent, though still kind of low.
Google Transit, which lets you get public transportation directions in Google Maps, now shows some European cities. They’ve got southeast of the UK, SBB, Switzerland, VBZ, Zurich, Switzerland, Turin, Italy, and Florence, Italy, but still no New York.
Google has a new widget you can add to your site which users can click on to automatically translate your website into the language of their choice. Microsoft added a similar widget at almost exactly the same time.
YouTube is looking into the possibility of doing higher quality, perhaps even HD video.
Looks like Google is slamming PayPerPost users, dropping their PageRank like crazy.
You can edit addresses in Google Maps now if they’re inaccurate. Check out the video:
Gmail added permalinks, so you can bookmark stuff and even send links to Gmail search results. Gmail’s also now up to 5 gigabytes of email storage.
I’ve mentioned this before with regards to phishing, but it bears repeating that the same method applies when faced with threatening or abusing email coming from a Gmail email address.
E*, who is a member of our country’s armed forces, and his wife L*, contacted me that they were receiving some awful messages from a Gmail user, making sexual messages toward L and threatening to kill E when he comes home for Thanksgiving. Even though most internet crazies are just harmless idiots, you should always take the proper steps to protect yourself, as you never know when you are dealing with the genuine sociopath.
Just like last time, the proper way of dealing with this is to contact Google. Go to this page and select “I have received a harassing message from a Gmail account.” Paste the full contents of the harassing email. Google should get back to you and hopefully help you fix the problem. If that doesn’t work, and even if it does, you should your local police department so they can look into it and protect you if it seems like a legitimate threat.
Last night my husband and I both got crazy emails from someone using gmail. The email basically said that they was going to kill my husband when he comes home for thanksgiving and that they have do crazy things with me. I really need to find out who {redacted}@gmail.com is. Please help me with this problem.
There are some scary people you meet on the internet, but the first thing to remember is that they are mostly just idiots with an email address. They usually rely on anonimity to harass, but won’t actual get up and threaten you. In most cases, you have more of a chance of making their life hell than they do of hurting you, and taking the proper steps to protect yourself should make it go away very quickly.
Hope I could help. It’s always worth remembering that I am not Google’s support department. I don’t work for Google, and I can’t fix the problem all the time. I can usually dispense advice, but your best bet is to contact Google directly and hope they can help you. If you contacted Google already and their notoriously lax support didn’t get back to you, then you should contact me and I’ll try to help.
* - obviously, I’m trying to protect their privacy by leaving out their real names
The YouTube blog has announced a useful piece of software, the YouTube Uploader. This helps you with the process of uploading multiple videos or large video files (though not long files) by enabling advanced functionality inside your web browser. Install the software and you can upload video in any Windows browser (even Opera!) on the Multi-Video Upload page, queuing all your videos so you can let them go up overnight.
The Uploader not only manages the uploading of more than one file, it also lets each file break the 100-megabyte file size limit. Each file can be up to one gigabyte in size, though they still must be under 10 minutes in length. If you have a YouTube Director or other special account, you can break the 10 minute barrier, too, making the larger size limit even more useful.
Google must feel pretty confident in its ability to find and remove copyrighted videos to allow giant files to be uploaded. It’s nearly impossible for copyright violators to get Director accounts, but they could upload a 700-megabyte movie in ten-minute chunks as 50-70 meg files, something Google’s going to have to watch out carefully for.
Google has announced a partnership with Gilbarco Veeder-Root, makers of gasoline pumps. Under the deal, Google Maps will be built into their pumps, letting motorists get driving directions while topping off their tanks. Three thousand internet-enabled gas pumps across the country will get the new software, which will let them search Google Maps for businesses and find directions (directions to an address will be added later). There will be no ads, but they can print out coupons, which is one way Google can monetize.
Ionut Alex reports that the Gmail team decided to make hacking their user interface even easier, adding an API for Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey is the Firefox add-on that lets you seriously alter the code behind running webpages, and Greasemonkey hackers are always having to work around changes made to Gmail, but the new API should keep things a lot more stable and open more options for Gmail Greasemonkey hacking.
Got an email from Tammy, owner of Spudgy, the sleepy dog that placed third for “Most Adorable” video in the YouTube awards with the video of the cute li’l dog trying and failing miserably to stay awake. She thanked me for saying that Spudgy’s video was easily the best one nominated in the whole contest (I don’t understand how it lost to a video about a bird commiting suicide*), and said they hope to be adding more videos of Spudgy to YouTube.
Besides the nominated video above, there’s also these two:
He so thinks nobody notices…
There’s a fourth video, not available on YouTube, of Spudgy barking to a Steve Miller Band song, available on Spudgy’s website, Spudgy.com. The Flash animation when you go to the website is pretty funny, since apparently Spudgy has a problem where he blows huge bubbles out of his nose (video, please!). The “Spudgy Adventures” part of the site is pretty funny, with Photoshopped pictures of the little guy.
As you can obviously see, I will take any excuse to post videos of cute dogs. Feel free to send me links to others you like.
* - For the record, I like “Kiwi!“, but it was sad, not adorable. A great effort, but there’s nothing adorable about that ending.
There’s been a lot of stuff going on about OpenSocial, and so you don’t have to read everything on the internet, I’ve done it for you (and still found 86 seconds of time to pay attention to the wife).
Who’s using OpenSocial? These guys have signed on:
Wait, is that a lot? 
This video is from Google’s Thursday night “Campfire” event, introducing OpenSocial, and introducing the OpenSocial partners to each other (since the project was so secret that no one knew who else was in);
Here are more Campfire highlights:
Here’s a weird one: Just as Google’s announcing OpenSocial, it lunches an Orkut-only application, an ask-your-friends application similar to a recently added LinkedIn feature and a common Facebook app. You can use it to ask a community question to your friends or the entire Orkut network. The app, available here, isn’t an OpenSocial one, it runs on the Orkut platform, code-named Mobius. Why not make it OpenSocial?
The Orkut Sandbox, for running and testing OpenSocial applications, is live now, and you can see one developer’s experience with it.
Valleywag’s was running charts on Wednesday, when it seemed like OpenSocial’s biggest partners were Orkut and LinkedIn, showing how Google’s network paled in comparison to the mammoth market share of Facebook. Then, on Friday, they had to run a new chart showing how the full network, including surprise addition MySpace, has more than six times the market share of Facebook in the U.S..
Plaxo is the first (or the first non-Orkut site) to support OpenSocial, giving interested developers a place to have their applications run, even if the OpenSocial standard is at 0.5 and is hardly set in stone. Plaxo users can add OpenSocial gadgets to their profile, gadgets get a full canvas page inside Pulse profiles, complete support for profiles and friend-list APIs, activity stream and activity data can be published by gadgets, and activities can receive comments in Plaxo Pulse.
Ning went live with OpenSocial a bit later.
Bebo, the major U.K. social network, is playing both sides, both joining OpenSocial and developing a tool for Facebook application developers to port their Facebook apps to Bebo. If Bebo becomes truly compatible with both Facebook and OpenSocial, it won’t be giving up its British crown anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Facebook is launching some sort of integrated sales data/advertising network. Basically, online stores will send Facebook purchasing information of Facebook users, and if those users choose to allow it, their purchases will be shown to their friends in their News Feed. Besides the giant privacy concerns, and the need to get commerce sites to play along (with the success of the whole thing depending on it integrating with actual important stores), there’s the Microsoft thing to consider, since MS is supposed to be Facebook’s ad network. Wait till this one gets announced, supposedly Tuesday, and I’ll probably have thoughts on InsideMicrosoft.
Google formally announced its OpenSocial social network application platform today, and there was a bombshell announcement that they held back till the end: MySpace is in! MySpace, the most popular social network, bigger than even Facebook, is a partner in OpenSocial and will support OpenSocial applications.
Also announced as joining: SixApart, owners of Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, and Vox; plus Bebo, joining previously announced partners Orkut, Oracle, Ning, XING, Tianji, Viadeo, Salesforce.com, Plaxo, hi5, imeem, Hyves, Friendster, Engage.com and LinkedIn. Many complained when word leaked out yesterday that Google’s partners, aggregated, barely register in the U.S. compared to Facebook, but the totality of this group has to have twice the market share of Facebook, with MySpace beating it all by itself.
OpenSocial just went from being an opening shot to a sure-fire game changer. With MySpace supporting it, it’s important; with everyone but Facebook supporting it, it becomes the de facto new platform. Basically, there are now two platforms, Facebook and OpenSocial, and unless OpenSocial fails due to poor infrastructure or implementation, both will be major market forces.
Facebook was offered a place in this group, but it declined, and with “big evil” Rupert Murdoch even joining the movement, they now look like the entrenched anti-user corporate entity, a big blow. OpenSocial won’t kill Facebook, it may not even convince Facebook users to leave, but it does kill Facebook’s network effect. There is no longer a pressing need to switch to Facebook because all the applications are there, the lock-in is pretty much over.
In the long run, this isn’t the Facebook killer, not even close. Facebook will thrive because Facebook users don’t want to switch; they like Facebook. However, Facebook wants to have a thriving developer community, and to get it, there’s still a good chance they’ll join Open Social, or try to compete with it. If Facebook joins, it’ll make switching around easier for users, and if it doesn’t, we’ll have a two-player war here, and those are always exciting to watch.
On one side, we’ve got Facebook and Microsoft, on the other, Google, Fox, and a lot of little guys. Of course, most of the important little guys (the developers, not the networks) already work on Facebook’s side, making them the most important players. The two sides are going to fight over developers, and Microsoft is very good at courting developers. If they can get some integration between Facebook’s Markup Language and Windows Live Spaces, the world’s most popular blogging service, perhaps via Microsoft Gadgets (which also run on Windows Vista), we’ve got a powerful closed solution on Facebook’s side.
The most important thing to remember is that we have no idea what Google supposedly gains from this. Yes, there’s a chance that Google just became the operating system of the internet, but there’s nothing in this so far about monetization. Google can’t sell the platform, and with MySpace in Orkut doesn’t look so important anymore. The programming languages are too standard for Google to sell developer tools.
We don’t know yet what Google stands to gain, except for being important and making no money at it. The only real gain: Google diminishes Facebook’s influence, and thus avoids Facebook becoming a major competitor, if this play succeeds. Things just got so interesting, nobody knows where it’s all going to end up.
Coverage: Mashable, TechCrunch
Ionut Alex found evidence in the source code for the newest version of Gmail that hints at features we may be receiving soon. He found code for Jabber transports, which would allow contacting people from other instant messaging networks over Google Talk/Chat’s Jabber connection, which makes sense given the fact that Gmail’s new contact manager asks for Yahoo, MSN and AIM usernames now.
Also, he found code that seems to hint they will be enabling users to choose different colors for labels, which should make quick identification of categories of email messages possible (though how they will manage emails with multiple labels is a mystery to me). Also, you might soon gain the ability to seperate emails from a conversation, a necessary addition to the Gmail conversation management we’ve waited three and a half years for.
There’s a new, horrible, horrible video making the rounds. It’s the video equivalent of goatse, and I recommend you do not see it. Suffice to say, the video involves poo in a cup, and two girls, and is so far beyond safe for work.
What is funny is seeing people’s reactions to watching the clip for the first time. 2 Girls 1 Cup, as it is known (and is available at 2girls1cup.com), is so awful, so disgusting, so perverse, that I almost vomitted while watching it, and I had to hide behind my wife to avoid the terrible images on my screen. Some people have such amazing, disgusted reactions, that people are videotaping their friends watching it and uploading it to YouTube.
Here’s a playlist of some of the best reactions. Some are undoubtably fake and staged, and if you see any cool ones, let me know. Trust me that it’s worth it watching the reaction videos, and that you do not want to see the actual video. Enjoy the playlist:
How popular is the video, or at least the reaction video? Well, it has just been getting popular the last few weeks, and it’s way bigger than Chocolate Rain or Chris Crocker:
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"two girls one cup" |
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"2 girls 1 cup" |
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2girls1cup |
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chocolate rain |
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chris crocker |
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src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Google Maps has a new area where you can search for coupons that stores have made available in Maps. Just go to a page like this one, and enter the area you’d like to search for stores with coupons in by the second search box. For better results, put the type of store’s coupon you’re looking for in the first box, like coupons for “pizza” in “flushing ny”.
I noticed last month that Google registered a bunch of “Google-Coupons.com”-style domains, and it looks like that was a real sign of things to come. I usually post about domain name registrations at InsideMicrosoft, so it’d be worth checking out those posts in detail in case some clue is waiting in there.
(via Blumenthals > Praized)
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