Last night I was sitting at the Good Time Charley’s bar watching the Michigan State vs. Iowa University football game in Ann Arbor, Michigan. All of a sudden I notice that a large crowd started gathering outside of the bar. When I walked out I saw smoke and fire spewing from the top of a building about one block down from where everyone was standing. The roof, the roof, the roof was on fire of a building that used to be known as Pinball Pete’s.
While the firefighters were battling the heat, students were busy taking pictures and updating their Twitter accounts. A couple of people next to me sent out some TwitPics immediately. Shortly after the pictures were taken, a video was uploaded on YouTube [embedded above] and Flickr user moto1986 uploaded a stream of pictures from the event.
When I was standing there watching all of the students sending out tweets and updating Facebook statuses while the firefighters were battling the fire, I couldn’t help but think about how far technology has brought us. Just imagine if this event took place about 10 years ago. Our friends would rely on how well we could describe the fire rather than having the ability to see our pictures on Twitter and our videos on YouTube.
Some of the tweets that were sent out are displayed below [click the image to enlarge]:
Amit Chowdhry | October 23, 2009 | 324 views | Comments Categorized under YouTube
Above is a video of a drunk guy named Larry who wanted more beer at the market, but he ran into some trouble on his quest. The dramatic music makes the video even more entertaining. However a lot of people commenting on the video don’t see it as being very funny because it is unknown what Larry might have done shortly after. Some people are worried that he got in a car or if he was taken to a hospital. What are your thoughts on the video?
Irish rock band U2 will be performing a concert this Sunday in Pasadena, California. The concert has already been sold out and YouTube will be streaming the concert for free and live. About 96,000 fans will be in the audience. The tour and video is being managed through U2’s partnership with Live Nation.
“The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time. As we’re filming the LA show, it’s the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2 – this time U2 can go to them, globally,” stated U2 manager Paul McGuinness. The concert will be available on U2.com and on YouTube. The U2 360 Tour had started in June with the first concert taking place in Barcelona.
The U2 360 Tour has a Twitter account that you can follow too. Some of the tweets that the account sends out are official videos made by U2 representatives. I especially like the video of the CN Tower that they made in Toronto.
Miley Cyrus is a celebrity that currently has the Midas touch. Every tweet, video, and song that she puts together becomes media gold. Last week I reported that Cyrus quit Twitter because her rumored boyfriend recommended it. However Cyrus made a rap video embedded above that reports the real reason why she quit. That reason is because of tabloids. The tabloids take her tweets and sometimes make reports on them that are out of context. This reasons does seem like a logical, but it is a blow to her fans nonetheless that follow her religiously.
The rap video above hit 3 million views in about 3 days. If Cyrus did not like the attention, then why would she put up a video which she knew would put her back in the spotlight? “I want my private life private,” raps Cyrus. “I’m living for me.” Of course Cyrus wants the attention, but only at a moderate level.
Miley Cyrus does make a good rapper for a Caucasian tween girl. But I still think Taylor Swift’s performance with T-Pain was more upbeat and fun. Beyonce has the greatest video of all time though.
AOL has poached another major Google employee. Kristen Kovner worked as the head of industry marketing at Google video website YouTube.com as of this past Friday. However she did not leave without saying or singing goodbye. Above is a video of Kovner singing. And below is the e-mail that Kovner sent to Google co-workers on her way out as posted by Valleywag. Kovner worked at Google for three years.
Amit Chowdhry | October 7, 2009 | 1,890 views | Comments Categorized under Hadouken, YouTube
Hadouken is a U.K. based band that has created a viral way to promote their music. Taking a page out of Weezer’s playbook, Hadouken compiled 100 of the most viral videos on YouTube and mashed them up into a a 3 minute and 24 second long video. The video embedded above has already over 2.3 million views on YouTube.
The Hadouken song being used in the video is called M.A.D. The original music video for M.A.D. now has about 250,000 views on YouTube. The original video is just as entertaining as it features a guy in a mouse costume walking around causing trouble.
The videos that they used in the mash-up include (ordered from beginning to end of the video):
-FOAR EVERYWUN FRUM BOXXY
-George Bush shoe attack
-Zidane headbutt
-Sneezing Panda
-Inspired Bicycles – Danny MacAskill April 2009
-Man Dominates Exercise Ball
-Exercise Ball Compilation People Getting Hit owned funny
-Boogie Board Faceplant
-fat girl on treadmill
-keyboard cat
-fire baseball
-Soccer goalie is hit in head by rebounding ball
-Break dance accident
-Billy’s Balls 2
-OK Go – Here It Goes Again
-Treadmill Fail
-Extreme Caterpillar Breakdance
-Fat Woman Falls off Table
-Monkey Business: Monkeys as waiters in japan
-Christian the Lion- Reunion!
-Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
-Amateur – Lasse Gjertsen
-stealth cat
-Dramatic Chipmunk
-Bizkit the Sleepwalking Running Dog
-close landing
-waterslide jump
-MEGAWOOSH – Bruno Kammerl jumps
-Diet Coke + Mentos
-star wars kid
-backflip fail
-afro ninja
-Guys backflip into jeans
-Jumping From 50 Meters High To Water.
-Diving Fail
-Will It Blend? – iPhone3G
-Guiness World Record for most T-Shirts worn at one time.
-Shoes the full version
-Fat Kid Falls in River
-Nattliv – Swedish hostess throws up on live TV!
-hey marine
-david after dentist
-leave britney spears alone
-Best Sex Ever
-charlie bit my finger
-Laughing Baby
-Kassie Kicks Monsters Ass
-Victory Fail
-balcony jump failed
-Boxer Hits Himself In The Face
-leeroy jenkins
-Jumpstyle duo by Jumpforce
-Beyonce Single Ladies Dance
-breakdancing baby
-Tokyo Dance Trooper in Shibuya
-break dance
-Ridiculously Hot LATINA girl dancing, not asian!
-Susan boyle
-Hardstyle Republic
-dubstep dance
-the evolution of dance
-Barack Obama on Ellen
-Crush On Obama
-Where the hell is matt?
-”Thriller” (original upload)
Ann Minch is a popular YouTube user that launched a revolution against Bank of America. She called the revolution a “Debtors’ Revolt.” Minch said that on the YouTube video that she refuses to pay her credit card bill because of an unfair interest rate hike. It turns out that Bank of America has reduced her rate as a result of the one-woman protest.
Minch said that a Bank of America representative contacted her on Friday and they had the following conversation as described by Minch.
“He asked me to talk a little about my personal financial situation so we can negotiate some kind of agreement in regard to my existing credit card account,” stated Minch. The B of A executive “tried to get me to agree to 16.99 percent and I said, ‘No, nope, I believe because you guys are getting your money from the Fed at zero percent interest… that 12.99 percent is a more than generous profit margin for you guys.’ So he did finally agree to that and he also agreed to send me that in writing.”
The first video made by Minch of the Debtors’ Revolt has been viewed about 250,000 times. The Huffington Post broke the story about the video and the resolution.
Minch’s credit card balance is about $5,943.34. “Just because my personal account situation has apparently been resolved, which is a small victory for this debtors’ revolt movement, we still have a war to fight,” added Minch.
What’s the first thing that happens when you visit a video on YouTube? Ads pop-up on the video and the video automatically starts playing. All this takes place before the video loads completely and that can get really annoying. Joe Simmons has solved this problem by building a GreaseMonkey script for Mozilla Firefox.
This script buffers the video first before playing the whole thing. The ads within the YouTube video are removed, and the HD option is automatically turned on if that option is available using the script. You can download the script from Userscripts. You must have GreaseMonkey installed first for this script to work.
Tesla Motors has a new VP of Communications and he comes from Google subsidiary YouTube. Reyes was the Director of Communications at the video website service before joining Tesla. Reyes will be starting in mid-September.
Before working at YouTube, Reyes worked in D.C. for projects involving public policy and communications. Reyes also spent two years working at Bracewell and Giullani LLC.
“Ricardo has deep expertise in both the public and private sectors in managing complex communication issues. He has a well earned reputation for being forthright, possessing a nuanced understanding of the facts and adapting quickly to a rapidly changing landscape, making Ricardo the perfect person for a fast-paced, high-profile company like ours,” stated Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a press release. “This is further evidence that Tesla is aggressively recruiting from both Silicon Valley and the traditional automotive industry to build the best possible team.”
Vevo is a music video website that is a joint venture between Universal Music, Sony Music and YouTube. According to sources with paidContent, the company is out seeking funding based on a $300 milion valuation. Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff has been travelling across the country to meet with potential investors in order to get the project off the ground.
Vevo will be based on of New York City and Los Angeles. The company has been hiring engineers over the last several months. As of right now, it is unclear whether EMI and Warner will join the venture. As for Warner Music, CEO Edgar Bronfman has spoken against the idea publicly.
I would not be surprised if other labels jump on the opportunity to work with Vevo in the near future. Hulu has proven to the world that web video could replace television just like it could do with music television. Vevo can be followed on Twitter.com/Vevo.
About three people recently broke into Lindsay Lohan’s house in Hollywood Hills this past Sunday. It was all captured on video and the Los Angeles Police Department decided to take the video to the Internet in order to get help in catching the suspects. The video has been uploaded to YouTube by the LAPD.
The video shows three young individuals. Two are female and one is male, but all of them are covered in scarves. Uploading the video of these three individuals on YouTube is an interesting approach. Given the millions of people that watch video clips on YouTube every day, someone is bound to recognize the people in the video.
“I’m sorry i haven’t been on in a bit… my life has been kind of in shambles considering my house was broken into and i feel really violated,” wrote Lohan on her Twitter account shortly after the incident took place.
Below is the video clip of the incident taking place.
Gideon Yu is the former chief financial officer at Facebook. In late March, Yu had suddenly quit and it was uncertain where he was headed to next. According to a source with TechCrunch, Yu has joined Khosla Ventures as a General Partner.
Yu was previously an SVP in Finance and Yahoo! and he was also the former CFO of YouTube. Before joining Khosla, Yu worked for a short while at Sequoia Capital. He was one of the main reasons why Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.
Khosla recently raised $1 billion in a fund to invest in various startups in the mobile, Internet, science, and clean-tech sectors.
Amit Chowdhry | August 25, 2009 | 277 views | Comments Categorized under YouTube
Last year YouTube launched a service called Partner Program. This allowed YouTube content owners and highly prolific users to make money from their videos. Aside from all the publicity that they receive on YouTube, the content owners would receive a cut from revenue earned from ads on their videos.
This program was only available for select publishers, but now the program is starting to open for individual viral videos. Some of YouTube’s most visited viral videos will receive the benefits of the program such as the people behind Battle at Kruger, David after dentist, and Otters holding hands.
YouTube determines whether a video is eligible for the partner program by looking at the number of views and the video’s compliance with YouTube’s Terms of Service. If a video is eligible, YouTube will send an e-mail to the account holder with a subject that says “Enable Revenue Sharing.” Revenue from the video will be added to the account holder’s Google AdSense account.
It was inevitable that Fred would eventually be replaced on YouTube as the most subscribed YouTube channel. Fred is the kid played by Lucas Cruikshank that edits his voice to be high-pitched and sped up. Fred is also one of the most searched kids on the web.
Fred was replaced by Nigahiga over the weekend. Nigahiga has about 1.392 million subscribers and Fred has about 1.36 million. Above is a video that Nigahiga made to celebrate their victory.
The Southeastern Conference college athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama is not a fan of social media. As a matter of fact, the SEC is looking to have all of their athletes banned from using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, TwitPic, etc.
One of the reasons why the SEC possibly wants to have social media banned is because of a contract they have in place with CBS. The problem is that it is hard to make a conference-wide ban on social media because it is a part of our everyday lives.
On top of the Twitter links, the Big 10 encourages users to join their Facebook groups and watch some of the best Big 10 games on Hulu.
I agree with Bret Feddern of BleacherReport when he writes “The SEC should follow the lead of the Big Ten rather than basing its decision making on the fear of what it doesn’t understand.”
