John Battelle picked up on some of the recent banter regarding YouTube’s value, mentioning a NY Post report that YouTube could be worth $1 Billion. Battelle expresses similar concerns over the copyright issue (discussed previously on Technology Evangelist here) staring any potential acquirer in the face and asks the key question about a copyright-free YouTube: “what is YouTube worth then?”
John Battelle’s Searchblog: YouTube Worth $1 BIllion? But Who Will Buy It?
So who might buy YouTube? A major entertainment company, like the ones mentioned in the Post piece? No way. That’s buying a lawsuit or ten - if Time Warner bought YouTube, how long do you think it’d be before competitors sued to get their copyrighted stuff off TW’s new service? And once that stuff is cleared off (YouTube does make a point of taking down copyrighted material when asked, but policing that massive service is not exactly a hand-rolled affair), what is YouTube worth then?
Should YouTube wipe out the copyrighted content to make themself more acquirable? Or, are they better off using the copyrighted material as bait to introduce more web users to YouTube so they can build a critical mass of non-copyrighted content creators?
Will a business risk acquiring YouTube as is, then removing copyrighted material, not knowing for sure what would remain of the service? Is that a $1 billion bet worth taking? Not likely.
If YouTube truly scrubbed all copyrighted material from their site tomorrow, what would be left? Would there be ANYTHING left interesting enough to draw an audience? I believe the answer is yes, in the form of video blogs.
The Blogger’s Platform Dilemma
Bloggers, regardless of format (written, images, podcasts, or video) all face a similar decision point early in their lifespan: Should I host my own blog, or use a blogging platform? It’s not an easy question to answer since there are many variables to consider in this choice.
Additionally, one should consider whether they’re better off joining an established network of bloggers or going solo.
Looking specifically at video blogging, two key factors that can’t be ignored are storage and bandwidth. Due to the relatively large file sizes involved in online videos, a successful video blogger can essentially put them self out of business if they’re too successful due to bandwidth and hosting costs. If that’s the case, self-hosting a video blog may not be the best approach.
But more importantly, how does a video blogger gain an audience?
YouTube to the Rescue
YouTube provides a compelling solution for video bloggers by:
1. Solving the bandwidth and hosting issue. YouTube covers those costs - for free.
2. Delivering an audience. Rather than building a site from scratch with zero visitors, content uploaded to YouTube is immediately available to their millions of viewers. Of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll get millions of views, but you’ll probably get more than you would on a separate site.
3. Creating a community. Community contributions can take many forms, from video ratings, marking videos as favorites, blogging videos and sharing them with friends. However, the killer community feature on YouTube is the Video Response features that allows members of the YouTube community to contribute their own videos in response to videos that have inspired them. Similar to blog comments, responders contribute content ranging from quick web cam comments of the original video to sophisticated parodies. This turns the primarily one-way communication platform into a true two-way medium.
One Example - YouTube Rights
Below is one example of a YouTube conversation between members. A guy going by the name Zen Archer posted a video lecturing YouTube members about the fact that they gave up some of their first amendment rights when they decided to participate in YouTube’s community, where they set the rules. The combination of topic, delivery, and style of Zen Archer’s presentation led to many follow-up videos including the few I’ve included below:
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The Bush adminstration suffered an enormous defeat [Thursday], as a federal district court denied its motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, which alleges that the administration’s NSA warrantless eavesdr
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“I thought I’d investigate digg’s stats and identify the main trends. Let’s look at the official dig.com stats first, then turn our attention to a new (unofficial) site call duggtrends.”
I spent some time today helping friends set up a new Dell laptop after reading
about the recent complaints online about Dell’s overly ambitious bundling of
3rd party software. My experience? It wasn’t that bad, other than dealing with
the Microsoft licensing setup, which is likely outside of Dell’s control.
Dell actually
posted
about this on their new blog yesterday, and it sounds like they’re paying
attention. I think the biggest challenge they face is alienating the
techiest of their users. If they wouldn’t consider using a Dell them self,
will they recommend them to their friends and family members? Not a chance.
What computers are techies using today? The trend seems to be toward Apple and
possibly Linux systems rather than any Windows PCs, including Dell. Can Dell
turn that tide?
I spent some time today helping friends set up a new Dell laptop after reading
about the recent complaints online about Dell’s overly ambitious bundling of
3rd party software. My experience? It wasn’t that bad, other than dealing with
the Microsoft licensing setup, which is likely outside of Dell’s control.
Dell actually
posted
about this on their new blog yesterday, and it sounds like they’re paying
attention. I think the biggest challenge they face is alienating the
techiest of their users. If they wouldn’t consider using a Dell them self,
will they recommend them to their friends and family members? Not a chance.
What computers are techies using today? The trend seems to be toward Apple and
possibly Linux systems rather than any Windows PCs, including Dell. Can Dell
turn that tide?
I spent some time today helping friends set up a new Dell laptop after reading
about the recent complaints online about Dell’s overly ambitious bundling of
3rd party software. My experience? It wasn’t that bad, other than dealing with
the Microsoft licensing setup, which is likely outside of Dell’s control.
Dell actually
posted
about this on their new blog yesterday, and it sounds like they’re paying
attention. I think the biggest challenge they face is alienating the
techiest of their users. If they wouldn’t consider using a Dell them self,
will they recommend them to their friends and family members? Not a chance.
What computers are techies using today? The trend seems to be toward Apple and
possibly Linux systems rather than any Windows PCs, including Dell. Can Dell
turn that tide?
E-mail is an interesting creature. Originally designed for text only this beast has grown out of control with users spoofing names, attachments in excess of 10MB and just plain abuse of the system. I have long believed that there are two areas where e-mail needs the greatest improvement: file attachments and user authentication. I can?¢Ç«®Ç—¢t fix user authentication today, but a product called Pando can fix the problems with attachments.
E-mail servers like to have text messages sent back and forth. As soon as a user sends a 10MB file, an image for example, it bogs down the servers on both ends, increases the size of the message storage and slows the process of getting new messages for the recipient as their system tries to download the massive attachment. The solution is to split the message into two parts. When I compose a message that has a 10MB file attached to it and hit send, the text part goes to the e-mail server while the attachment goes to a file server. The recipient would not see a file in the message like they do today, rather they would see a link to the file just like a link to a web site. By splitting the message into two parts the E-mail server does not need to store and process a huge file and the recipient does not have to download a massive file to get the rest of their messages. This is the best case solution. It?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s transparent to both the sender and recipient. No special e-mail program is used, the e-mail client knows how to split the messages and where to send each, and so it just works.
I don?¢Ç«®Ç—¢t know how to get that best case scenario today, but Pando.com gets us really close. Install the Pando client on your Windows based PC or Macintosh, and using the client you can send a message with up to a 1000MB attachment (that?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s 1GB). The attachment will go to their file server while the message will simply have the link to the file. This is fantastic. What Pando does not do today is integrate directly into my Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird or Mail.app applications from the sender side but it does look like they are working on getting direct Outlook support soon. Unfortunately this service requires the recipient to also have Pando installed. I believe the solution would be much more powerful if Pando simply embedded a link into the message without requiring any special software. A simple web browser would be a great tool to download. Pando gets us close, but not all the way to the grand attachment vision above. The reason that Pando requires a special app on the receiving end is that the whole system uses a P2P type model. The advantage of this is that the recipient can start downloading the file before the sender is done uploading, making the time required in the whole process much smaller than it could be. The other advantage is that bandwidth can be shared between the sender and receiving party. This helps keep costs low if not free. I would like to see a system where rather than placing a .pando file in the recipients e-mail, it’s a hyperlink that the recipient can click on. This link would open a page that would try and detect a Pando install. If Pando is installed the download would start right away. If Pando is not installed the file would download right in the browser. If the file was not done uploading then the user would have the option to wait for the file or to download Pando to start the x-fer right away.
By using Pando today I?¢Ç«®Ç—¢m able to get 1/2 way to my vision of splitting the message from the attachment. Hopefully soon they will have their Outlook plugin which will make the process almost transparent to both sides. I would really like to seea Thunderbird, Outlook Express and Mail.app plugin as well. It would also be nice if Pando sold server software that an IT department could install on a box next to their mail server. This would allow users inside the building to take advantage of the service without having to use external bandwidth and it should be a lot faster.
For now Pando is in beta but I have found that it works great. If you?¢Ç«®Ç—¢re constantly sending messages with large attachments (anything over 1MB in my opinion), do your IT team or E-mail admin a favor… Download and try Pando. They will thank you for it!
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Network Neutrality, PC vs Apple, AND Chuck Norris Jokes all in one segment.
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“It describes a touch-screen interface for portable electronics devices that can sense when an object, such as a person’s finger, is approaching. When an object is sensed, the touch-screen interface may perform an action such as displaying a “virtual scro
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“They block competition and charge too much. You call this a communications revolution?”
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“Internet phone provider Skype is expanding its Wi-Fi calling options with the launch of three new wireless phones that will have the Skype Internet calling software embedded.”
Jason Calacanis has written an interesting post on his reasoning behind offering to pay top bookmarkers from Digg and Reddit to bookmark at Netscape’s new news site:
Why the Web 2.0 and media elite are so upset about paying amateurs (or “I’m sorry, does Mike Arrington work for free?”) - The Jason Calacanis Weblog
However, some of the folks who blog are great writers and some of the folks who put pictures on Flickr are amazing photographers. Those folks get paid for their work, the masses do not–and that’s just fine. Everyone is entitled to make their own choice in these matters. Some folks write for the love of it and don’t want to get paid, some of us consider it our trade.
Going Web 2.0 Pro
To me, this raises the question, “When can someone go pro in a Web 2.0 world?” The obvious answer: “Whenever someone will pay for your specialized skill.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. This doesn’t necessarily mean people are quitting their day jobs to bookmark news stories full time but it should provide some interesting side income for newly acquired and discovered specialized skills.
Here are ten new specialized skills we’ll see people charging for:
1. iStockPhoto Consultant: Helps people maximize the revenue potential of their photos.
2. Flickr Photo Consultant: Helps people improve the quality of their photos using Photoshop and other tools.
3. Professional Reviewers: Hired by Amazon, Judy’s Book, Expedia, etc.
4. AdSense Consultants: Help people maximize their site’s AdSense revenue.
5. RSS Consultants: Help people optimize their use of RSS.
6. Video Syndication Consultants: Work with video producers to syndicate content to all online video serving platforms (YouTube, Google Video, Veoh, iFilm, etc., etc.)
7. Social Networking Consultants: Help businesses make best use of social networking sites like MySpace, Digg, Reddit, etc.
8. VoIP Consultants: Help businesses sort through the many VoIP options on the market today.
9. Web based application consultants: Help businesses choose and use appropriate web based software, such as Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Webmail applications, etc.
10. Syndication Consultants: Help businesses determine where to syndicate their content (Google Base, Oodle, Shopping.com, hreview?) and implement syndication.
What new specialized skills do you see emerging around Web 2.0 companies?
This is the fifth in a 435-part series (give or take) on sources of syndicatable content for websites. Sites covered in this series offer tools to publish content from their site onto your own site.
Yahoo Stock Quotes
Yahoo has rolled out a new Yahoo Finance badge creator that allows website owners to easily syndicate stock quotes with charts and headline onto your website or blog.
Users simply choose the stock tickers they’d like to syndicate, choose their preferred combination of charts and news headlines, customize the size and color scheme, then paste the custom code into their site. Yahoo takes care of the rest. Here is an example for Apple Computer:
This could be a nice addition to sites reporting on specific companies. However, it may not be the best choice for one-time news reports. For example, reports on Yahoo’s recent stock price drop are better illustrated alongside a snapshot of the relevant time period than a live graph, which would grow out of context after five days:
Where would you find Yahoo Finance badges useful?
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