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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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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Today, YouTube has given Rob Zombie the front page, and he’s chosen some great videos to display for Halloween. The best has got to be “Wanna Buy A Ghost”, though “Mary Poppins” and “Horror Friends” are excellent too. Check em out.
The YouTube blog is talking about a redesign they are working on of the video browsing page, one that you can try out right now by following this link. The design hasn’t changed in any jarring way, unless you count the big red bar (which you won’t see today because of the Halloween logo, but you can see here), but it does feature drop-down menus on all the tabs for fast category switching and a cleaner, better organized grid of video details. Check it out and leave feedback.
The YouTube blog announced a cool opportunity. YouTube members can submit a video response to this video (embedded above) asking a question about the current NBA season, and Charles Barkley will try to answer it on Thursday during Inside The NBA, the commentary show he shares with Magic Johnson, Reggie Miller and others). Hopefully, the segment will be a success, and Inside The NBA (and maybe other shows too) will make soliciting video questions online a part of their regular programming.
Google has updated the embeddable player used when a YouTube video is embedded in another website, giving the player larger, more cartoon-like buttons that are easier to hit. The new player has the exact same buttons* and appears to have the same dimensions for the video (though the control area makes the overall player take up more space), but it is bolder and features some animations (like when dragging the progress slider over).
While the new design does increase usability, it is also a bit distracting, plus it includes completely wasted empty space in between the buttons and the margins of the control area. Here’s the new player, edited by me to remove the unnecessary space, and I think it’s an improvement and better use of room (it’s 15 pixels shorter, and makes a nice difference):
So, do you like the new player more than the old one? I think it’s an improvement, but too much in a wrong direction. Other sites are trying to do sleeker players that try to be unobtrusive, while YouTube’s is now very in-your-face. Google want you to remember it’s a YouTube video, but this is a bit much.
* - I think this is new, though I’m not certain, but you can click the timer to switch between play time and time remaining displays.
Ionut Alex reports that Google Maps has added profile pages for users who create content for the service. The profile services are built on the same nameless platform Google Shared Stuff profiles are built on, and show reviews you’ve written and personalized MyMaps you’ve created. Check out his post for screenshots, or this video which explains it all:
Other new features I’ve neglected to cover:
Google Desktop 5.5 was released in beta, and it brings an improved Quick Search box, support for running multiple copies of a Gadget at once, and improved Outlook searching. It also brings a new ability: Google Desktop Gadgets can now run on iGoogle homepages. That means that the desktop Gadgets, with advanced functionality and the ability to access files on your computer (like playing music files) can run in a webpage and take advantage of iGoogle’s tabs.
If a regular iGoogle user tries to use a Desktop Gadget, they’ll be prompted to install Google Desktop in order to be able to use it. The version of Desktop they install will be a special, streamlined version that has only the Gadget functionality enabled, but none of the desktop search stuff. The advantage for Google is that all the rest of Desktop is right there and ready, should users decide to check it out.
Ionut Alex shows what a Google Online Desktop could look like, with a full desktop and windows showing your Gmail, Google Calendar, and other Google services.
Google Transit, a Labs service that showed public transportation on Google Maps, has been folded into Maps itself. Now, if you are in one of the five cities for which transit data is available (SF, Seattle, Portland, Dallas and Japan), you’ll get bus and train directions if you want.
And get this: YouTube videos are now available as a layer in Google Earth. Geotagged videos will appear as placemarks in Google Earth, and you can click them to watch them right there in the interface.
Oh, and Blogger Play, which shows a slideshow of photos from Blogger blogs, is now available as a Google Gadget, so you can install it on your iGoogle homepage.
Finally, Google Maps is now available as a program you can install on a phone running the Symbian operating system.
The latest video gaining steam on YouTube is “>this video of beauty pagent contestant Stacy Hedger performing the theme to Star Wars on a trumpet:
785,000 views, most of them since the video exploded over the last week. Obviously, her playing is awful, but it’s hard to ignore the hair, the dancing, or the using of the the trumpet as a blaster.
Google has released to the world (well, to AdSense publishers) the option to embed YouTube players with ads and make money off them. You can’t just embed any video you like, so I can’t embed my occasional “Best of YouTube” posts and make money specifically from the video player, but instead you choose from a number of YouTube’s content partners like lonelygirl15, EmergencyCheese, Ford Models, LockerGnome (Chris Pirillo), smosh and many others, or you can enter a list of keywords for Google to auto-choose videos for you from.
The video embedded above is a sample video from Google explaining how the program works. The player below is targetted to the keyword “google”:
As you can see, a small banner ad appears in a space on top of the player, and while you watch videos, an ad overlay appears at the bottom that can be closed. The playlist appears as the flowing overlay at the bottom, as it does in many YouTube videos.
Obviously, not getting to choose the videos in the player severely limits the usage of the player. It can be placed on keyword specific pages, and little else. If there’s a Chris Pirillo video I really like, even though he’s a YouTube partner, I can’t share that video as an ad unit, because I can only broadly select his channel, not any specific videos.
Also, the argument for YouTube only advertising with partners only works with ads on YouTube.com, that users who upload video should get to decide if video appears beneath their content, and YouTube should decide which videos are worthy of advertising. If I want to put ads around my own videos on my own external site, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to, especially since this program links my YouTube account to my AdSense account.
Also, the ad unit uses a Script tag, another mistake. Google continues to limit certain uses of their ads by wrapping them in JavaScript, preventing those ads from appearing in places that ban JavaScript, like WordPress blogs. I had to install a plugin just to show you those videos in this post. YouTube became successful because it made embedding dead easy, and Google is removing that ease with this program.
Still, it’s good to see this getting started. Hopefully, Google will figure out that the appeal of this program in its current form is limited, and fix it soon.
The YouTube AdSense unit can be activated in your AdSense account, and is then available on YouTube itself at this link. It is currently only available to English-language publishers in the U.S..
The Republican edition of the CNN/YouTube debates is 50 days away, and two major candidates are still planning on skipping it. Both Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson (known to most of Americe as ThatMormonGuy and Law&OrderGuy) have neglected to RSVP, hoping to avoid the sillier questions posed by YouTube’s more human audience. Hopefully, they’ll reconsider.
I almost get Romney, but considering Thompson’s ease in front of a camera, what’s he afraid of? Got problems working without a script?
photo by chetlyzarko
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Boing Boing has the story of British potsmoking idiot who did something truly awful to a 50-year old dying disabled woman involving a bucket of water, his urine, shaving cream and a phone video camera. The stoner videotaped his antics so he could put it up on YouTube, rather than making a decent effort to get the woman to a hospital, and she died hours later.
He tried to rouse her by throwing a bucket of water over her, before urinating on her and covering her with shaving foam. The incident was filmed on a mobile phone.
She was later declared dead at the scene, the cause of death being given as pancreatic failure.
Lynne Dalton, prosecuting, said: “Although his actions did not contribute to her death it was appalling behaviour that robbed her of any dignity in the last hours of her life.”
Hopefully, this degenerate will be taught a serious lesson at the hands of the penal system, but what really caughts me was his cry as he degraded this poor woman: “This is YouTube material!” Is that the new battle cry of our generation? Oh, boy.
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