Photo: John Carleton / Flickr

As if Netflix, Hulu, and a raft of other streaming/web VOD services weren’t confirmation enough, word that Google is planning a pay-per-view movie service through YouTube and Apple is considering dabbling with streaming videos is proof that the idea of television programming and the web being two separate things is coming to an end.

The Tube in your YouTube

Rumours have been circulating that YouTube will be launching a pay-per-view video service (more like relaunching, actually) after the Financial Times reported execs at the service were talking to the bigwigs in Hollywood, according to their sources. This movie pay-per-view services comes a mere few days after YouTube’s free movies on demand for classic films began to surface. The service is expected to launch before the end of the year.

The nemesis cometh – Apple

Rumours have also been gathering Steam that YouTube’s ‘frenemy’ Apple would soon be revealing its own movie pay-per-view streaming service. The Apple news comes via Cnet, who supposedly have an Apple Insider who’s spilled the beans. The service is expected to launch before the end of the year, too, with their being a high chance Apple will announce plans for it at their 1 September special event.

A moment of silence

And in the backdrop to the story of YouTube launching its pay-per-view service, as well as Apple reportedly dabbling with the idea of streaming video, Blockbuster, the major US video rentals chain, is reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy. In case you still doubted the power of technology bringing about genuine market disruption, Blockbuster is going under, thanks in no small part to a tiny revolution started by a little company called Netflix. Now everyone with media smarts and the right technology is having a go at a technological revolution through movie pay-per-view and streaming video-on-demand that legacy businesses like Blockbuster are already dinosaurs.

Photo: Alex Guerrero / Wikimedia Commons

Okay, though that title is somewhat misleading but not untrue, legendary film producer and director Ridley Scott as well as director Kevin MacDonald are developing a documentary, as part of a YouTube experiment, titled ‘Life in the Day’.

Chronicling your life

The film will showcase footage of 20 people’s lives, as lived on 24 July 2010, from a range of submissions. Those who are selected will be flown in to the film’s worldwide premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and will also be credited as co-directors.

Social filmmaking

MacDonald explained in a statement that ‘“Life in a Day’ is a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.’ He continued, saying ‘It is a unique experiment in social filmmaking, and what better way to gather a limitless array of footage than to engage the world’s online community.’

Cultural significance

Photo: YouTube

Outside of the bearing this Youtube experiment has for budding filmmakers, this project reaffirms how important YouTube has become in contemporary society. Pretty much anybody can grab a flip cam and share their experiences with the world on a variety of services, but how many people (or services) have the opportunity to share credits with people as accomplished as Scott and Macdonald, the director of the critical darling Last King of Scotland? Exactly.

Everbody join in

Submissions are open to all YouTube users, by simply uploading a video to www.youtube.com/lifeinaday. ‘Why not?’ we say. It will make for a fascinating experiment and getting co-director credits next to Ridley Scott is no joke. The guy did Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Alien and the ultimate sci-fi classic, Blade Runner. Yep, a significant piece of film history as envisioned by one man. This is huge.

Who knows. Perhaps you can tell your grandchildren ‘what it was like to be alive on the 24^th of July 2010’ and to get to make a film with Ridley Scott. Sure it’s a fun Youtube experiment and activity for some, but it could be some budding filmmaker’s impressive debut, too.

Photo: YouTube

Google’s YouTube has been in a long-running high profile court case with television and media giant Viacom, with regards to copyright infringement. Viacom sued YouTube for $1 billion in damages, and also demanded the service remove all copyrighted Viacom content. Now, years later, the YouTube Viacom case is over, with Google emerging victorious.

DMCA central to the issue

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998, was central to the YouTube Viacom debate. Basically, the DMCA protects services that do not know about specific pieces of content on that service that contravene copyrights and also removes the infringing content when brought to their attention. Basically, YouTube knows there is copyright infringing content on its site, but it does not know which content is infringing on copy, specifically, and the company’s ongoing willingness to remove the infringing content when brought to its attention puts Google and YouTube in the clear.

Naturally Google, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, did a little victory dance on hearing the result, saying: ‘Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.’

Viacom to appeal

Viacom has released a statement indicating they intend on appealing the ruling. A snippet from the statement reads: ‘We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress, and the views of the Supreme Court as expressed in its most recent decisions. We intend to seek to have these issues before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible.’

The ramifications

This YouTube Viacom ruling is a very big deal. The landmark case means similar, less high profile services have a landmark case to refer to, if they come under attack for similar practices. One must wonder if this ruling means video sites will now begin self-filtering content even less now, considering they do not have to unless prompted to on specific pieces of content.

Outside of Viacom and the ‘old media’, there’s been a flurry of celebration in technology circles with a prominent venture capitalist sharing his take on the ruling and YouTube’s CEO, Chad Hurley, naturally, showing his elation, too. And, for users, this ruling is the best possible outcome. Your YouTube won’t change at all, and that’s a good thing.

Photo: Google

Early reports suggested the Turkish government had it in for Google with several of the Internet giant’s services being inaccessible within the country. It has since emerged, though, that this is as a result of the nation’s ongoing attempts to block YouTube for its contravening of Turkish law.

YouTube to blame, possibly?

It has emerged that the temporary Internet censorship was as a result of the ongoing ban of YouTube in Turkey, with Google issuing a statement indicating as such. A Google spokesperson released an email statement, which read: ‘We have received reports that some Google applications are unable to be accessed in Turkey. The difficulty in accessing some Google services in Turkey appears to be linked to the ongoing ban on YouTube. We are working to get our services back up as soon as possible.’

In 2007, the Turkish government banned YouTube in the wake of complaints relating to questionable video content. Citizens bemoaned the availability of videos that criticized Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, who is the founder of modern Turkey. This was in direct violation of Turkish law where insult to Turkey and criticism of the nation is a criminal offence.

So what is the problem exactly?

Photo: YouTube

Well, the Turkish government is basically blocking a range of IP addresses it thinks are related to YouTube. Any other Google services that fall within that range will, as a result, be affected to, with the Turkish government saying Google was responsible for those protocols. So, basically, Google would need to do slight alterations to the IP addresses with its specific services to get Google apps up and running again.

Internet censorship 101

With Turkish law being slightly more dramatic than Britain’s, this minor drama is another indicator of the problems associated with government having any control over ISPs and Internet censorship. This incident is the very reason the Digital Economy Act is potentially far more dangerous than the British government claims and why Internet censorship has the potential to completely disrupt the free flowing and dissemination of information we all have a right to.

Photo: Microsoft

The technology press was invited to a special Microsoft event, where the software giant previewed its latest build of Hotmail. Early impressions? It looks good but it sure will take a lot to pry Gmail converts away from the service.

First things first – alignment

It’s clear that Gmail was central to the Hotmail team’s discussions in their planning how to rollout the service, and this is evidenced in the product composition. Hotmail now has greater storage, an improved spam filter, an optional threaded conversations feature, and chat integrated elegantly into the service (finally!). Additionally, the Microsoft Hotmail team spent time optimizing for mobile browsers, and especially for the current generation of smartphones like the BlackBerrys and iPhones of the world.

The notable features

Gmail trail blazed by having YouTube embedding both in Google Talk and in emails, but Microsoft Hotmail is taking it a step further by embedding Hulu, Justin.tv, and the aforementioned YouTube.

Microsoft Hotmail also has smart slideshow tools, both for attachments in mails as well as links that lead to SmugMug and Flickr.

Photo: YouTube

A feature that really interests us – and anybody who’s ever subscribed to a newsletter you just keep marking as spam, which is nearly everybody – is the ‘sweep’ tool. What this does is it automatically deletes all communications from things you’ve willingly signed up for without dubbing the sender a spammer.

The odd omission

In a world where social networking may become the defacto way people use the web, the omission of thorough social integration in the new Hotmail is strange. Startups like Posterous have shown the value of getting your hooks into everything and simply, while Microsoft itself with its Windows Phone 7 Series and Kin phones seem to understand the value of social networking, so this omission leans more toward laziness than a gross oversight.

Early impressions are pretty solid, with a renewed drive in Hotmail being legitimately viable. However, getting Gmail ninjas to switch will be highly unlikely unless Microsoft has an ace in their pocket they have yet to reveal.

Photo: YouTube

YouTube is currently the biggest video sharing website on the Internet and continues to grow with the Web megalith turning a youthful five years old this week. With 2 billion hits currently being recorded by the site daily it seems that the site is continues to grow and dominate the web video-sharing sphere.

An Internet legend

YouTube has become so popular over the years, that some can’t imagine the Internet without it and the numbers speak for themselves. It would take 1,700 years to try watch every single video on the site and each day the equivalent of a 100 years of video is scanned by a special Content ID scanner looking out for copyright infringements.

Birthday channel

It all started in 2005 and Google snapped up YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion (about £1.13 billion) in 2006. To celebrate their birthday, they have set up a special birthday channel on the site where users can post their videos recording the difference the site has made in their lives.

Videos for everyone

The site has had almost anything for anyone and over the years we’ve seen Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance played over 200 million times following at a close second, at 185 million views, by a video called ‘Charlie bit my finger’ by two brothers. Nike and their golden boy at the time Ronaldinho were the first to get a million views with their ‘Touch of Gold’ advert in 2005. The site has also evolved into a bit of a political platform over the times with Barack Obama having his own channel and even the Pope and the Queen having their say from their own personal channels now and then.

The future looks bright for the online video sharing megalith with Google looking for more ways to make the video sharing profitable. Google TV, which we covered a while ago, may be just around the corner, looking to bring online videos into the home in more ways than one. Well after everything is said and done, Happy Birthday YouTube.

Photo: Youtube

YouTube’s recently launched video rental service (which is still in the US only for now) is tanking. Quite spectacularly, in fact. And while the entire YouTube service continues to command about 40 per cent of all online video viewing, the rental component’s title with the most views has only racked up a count of 1,421.

Lackluster

In a post exposing just how lackluster the YouTube video rentals performance has been, NewTeeVee outlines the top 10 movies on the service have only seen a sniff over 6,000 views.

The problem: perception

The major stumbling block for YouTube’s video rental service is perception. While YouTube itself has never been a copyright-infringer, the company’s service enables copyright infringement. And, as such, the viewers, who have consumed material that would otherwise have a price tag for free, have a hard time paying for content on YouTube.

If one compares this to a service like Sky-on-Demand or even a freemium music service like Spotify, it’s clear that the audience’s expectation to pay is built into the service.

The solution: solve the perception

Photo: Sky

As such, the obvious answer is the YouTube Store needs to overcome the perception issues. This could occur in one of two ways – either through deliberately separating the YouTube Store from the core service, or organically in a way similar to what the service has done with VEVO.

VEVO, which is YouTube’s music video service, is built into YouTube’s core offering, and when search results hosted on VEVO are clicked through, it sends YouTube’s user to a VEVO-branded page. With this, YouTube is managing a user’s expectations through repeat impressions, and over time, the same could be done for the YouTube video rental service.

The alternate solution:

Outside of the suggested solutions above, YouTube can look at a host of online services to see how they get users to pay for content. The Kindle model of try before you buy, where you get to read the first chapter for free could work for video rentals, too. Instead you would be able to view, say the first five minutes for free before being prompted to purchase the rental.

The point is YouTube has the scale to make the service work, as well as the sales and engineering talent, too. What they have is a perception problem organisations like Netflix never had because their proposition was clear from day one. Over time, the YouTube Store can (and most likely will) gather momentum.

Photo: Youtube

YouTube are looking to improve their profits in the online rental arena with the opening of their online rental store on Thursday.

Dismal attempts

YouTube had what can be described as a dismal initial venture into the rental business offering five Sundance Film Festival titles for rent on the site. Some called it beta testing and others described it as a total flop. Either way, as a result, prices have been revised downwards for this latest phase of the rental store.

Content lacking mass appeal

Photo: Netflix

The rental store is offering a variety of content like series, independent movies, documentaries, cartoons, anime and even a few flicks from Bollywood for loan on a 48-hour period. YouTube has however announced that available content will continue to grow as the rental store gains popularity. However, one has to question Google’s marketing tactics in opening the new rental store with no fireworks, major announcement or even candle-lighting. They may still be taking a cautious approach in their latest attempt to boost YouTube’s revenue which they acquired a while back.

Even though the YouTube rental store seems to have something to watch, it still looks like Netflix shouldn’t be worried at all. Box office hits are currently few and far between on the rental store and there still seem to be some problems in porting any content received from YouTube to a TV. Also, YouTube is facing what can be called a crisis of identity by charging for content although millions of Internet users worldwide know it as a free service. These all may be teething problems, but YouTube rental store still has a long way to go if it’s to offer anything tangible to the large target market which Google Inc. is aiming for.

YouTube continues to dominate as the online video viewing hub of choice for many, but only time will tell if the rental store will become a success.

Sony Ericsson w995 packs many features. It is fully loaded with connectivity options, the biggest screen on a Sony Ericsson feature phone, GPS, Wi-Fi and a great user interface. A balanced combination of music and imaging, the phone has a 8.1 mega pixel camera with auto focus, LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection. Wi-Fi with DLNA support and Bluetooth (with A2DP) and USB v2.0 are other helpful features of this phone. The phone has a Walkman 4.0 music player with Shake control and SensMe and an Accelerometer sensor. The phone has brushed metal body parts and offers quad-band GSM and dual-band HSDPA.

It has a 2.6 inch screen with 256K-colour TFT display of QVGA resolution. It offers WQVGA video recording at 30fps and has built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality. It has 118MB of internal memory and M2 memory expansion (8GB card included). As for audio, the Sony Ericsson w995 has stereo speakers and a 3.5 mm audio jack along with a kickstand. It also offers FM radio with RDS and multi-tasking support. Smart dialling, a comfortable keypad and nice sliding mechanism are other features of the phone. TrackID music recognition, picture editor/blogging, YouTube mode, organizer and a voice memo/dial are other features of the phone. However, the phone does not have an infrared port and its video recording limited to WQVGA. It does not have lens protection, no DivX/XviD video support and no office document viewer. All in all, an attractive phone, Sony Ericsson w995 packs many features and is a delight to use.

The world’s leading video sharing portal, YouTube, has recently shocked its UK fans by declaring that its UK web site will not host any music videos. The Google owned web site took this decision because it failed to renew its license due to a disagreement between YouTube and the UK’s Performing Right Society (PRS for Music), which is responsible for collecting licensing fees for artists and labels. Although YouTube wants to continue to serve people in the UK, it cannot do that because of the restrictions imposed by the PRS.

The previous license of YouTube is expired and this time the YouTube says that the PRS is demanding too much for the renewal. This means millions of owners in the UK of YouTube viewing capable phones, like the Nokia N96, will no longer be able to enjoy their music videos. YouTube says it cannot reach a renewal deal because there is no transparency in its deal with the PRS. Moreover, the renewal fee is so high if the YouTube pays it then it will become financially unstable. The PRS has refused to tell Google what songs are included in the license. So the Google finds no valid reason to renew its license which will finally affect the music video fans in UK.

On the other hand PRS justifies itself and the music row by commenting that Google is not willing to pay enough amount for the renewal of its license. According to the PRS foundation, “PRS for Music is outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the U.K. Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing.”

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