YouTube’s Networkization Ready for 2012

At seven years old, and swaggering with all its 800 million unique monthly visitors, YouTube is on the verge of something new: original, non-amateur video content. The site even has a swank-ily revamped interface from which to present its offerings of polished content.

The video-sharing leviathan, whose parent company is Google, has gotten more than its feet wet in the waters of entertainment production by hiring professional writers, directors, and producers. One hundred-plus channels will be inaugurated, possibly before the summer, by these pioneers of professional YouTube content. Amy Poehler, the comedian pictured at the left, will be one of them.

John Seabrook has been keeping tabs on YouTube for some time, and he rendered his observations in a New Yorker essay that appeared today. According to Seabrook, YouTube is going after a larger chunk of the $60 billion advertisers shell out on television; they currently only spend $3 billion on the Web. But that’s not it; YouTube is also positioning itself to be able to sell its professional channels to television networks and the cable guys.

In the future YouTube is betting on, fifty percent of homes will be hooked up to view Web channels on their TVs. Without a doubt, the company Chad Hurley, Steven Chan, and Jawed Karim founded is also hoping its professional content will persuade users to stay on the site longer than the 15 minutes they’re currently spending there each day.

Read More:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/16/120116fa_fact_seabrook?currentPage=all

Video Calling Now at Facebook

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg had been talking about how Facebook would be “launching something awesome” very soon; today everyone found out what that “something” was: video calling. The new product was revealed this morning at a “news event” the company held in Palo Alto, CA.

Video calling will be integrated into every user’s Facebook in the coming weeks, but early-risers and go-getters can download a free update at the FB site and start using it now — it will be available in 70 different languages. Such multi-lingual capabilities can be expected to be kept up as Facebook also made it known that the number of users in its network had reached 750 million across the world.

Although a separate “multi-person chat” feature also had its unveiling today, as of now, Facebook video calling is only for person-to-person use. In contrast, Hangouts, Google+’s version, permits group video chatting for up to ten people. Another area where Google’s product has a clear advantage is that Hangouts can be used on mobile phones, while Facebook’s “Video Calling,” at least at this point, cannot. This is despite the fact that Skype — whose video calling service was operational on mobiles — was Facebook’s partner in this latest product’s development.

But in other not-trivial-at-all news for Facebook, its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg is the most followed person on Google+. Larry Page (Google’s CEO) is number two.

Read More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/technology/facebook-introduces-video-chat-in-a-partnership-with-skype.html?ref=technology

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388073,00.asp

YouTube: Riding on a Content Creator Camp and Bigfoot Sighting

Last week, YouTube held a Content Creator Camp — its first — at the Google Manhattan Offices. During the camp, winners of a talent show sponsored by the Google-owned website got to hear expert advice on viral-video creation, audience-building, and brand-strengthening. The camp comprises an important element of YouTube’s latest effort to amass a big heap-up of novel video content of quality. Margaret Healy, a lead for strategic partnerships at YouTube, summarizes the effort’s direction: “We would like it if everyone who had the talent, interest and potential to gain an audience to come on YouTube and start a channel and make original content.”

Currently, YouTube uses its Partner Program to share advertising gains with video content creators with big audiences on the site. It’s reported that the Partner Program garnered 100 billion views and multi-million dollar profits in the last year alone. Next New Networks, a video production company bought by Google in March, has been tapped to provide production support to video content generators working under the Partner Program.

Although the last quarterly report showed a doubling of YouTube’s profits, the site remains well aware of the competition posed by its rivals like Hulu and Netflix, to name a few. Thankfully, for YouTube’s big effort, Samantha — real name still unknown — has just posted a viral video of a Bigfoot sighting in Spokane, Washington that’s got even the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization speaking out to the media. In a bit of a discredit to Samantha, however, they proclaim the sighting’s location to be historically unlikely.

Read More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/media/30youtube.html?ref=technology#

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2011/05/did-washington-state-hiker-catch-image-of-bigfoot.html

New Social Video App for iPad

You are now free to watch the videos your friends post on Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo in a personalized and streamlined format, you’ll just need an iPad or iPhone. Today, Remixation (the Vodpod people) released the free iPad app Showyou.

The app’s claim to fame is its ability to create an attractive video display grid of clips posted and shared on almost the whole gamut of available social networks. YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Vodpod (of course) are all supported. Hulu and other websites belonging to major television networks are not. Kind of more than a little bit of a let-down.

But Showyou comes with a nifty set of tools. You can follow people, post your videos on the main site, and share them directly with your other social networks. Users can also leave comments after watching a Showyou clip and contribute to the popularity ranking of the ones best liked.

A Showyou subscription service may be in the horizon and though providing no direct quote on Remixation CEO Mark Hall’s true ambition for the app, the L.A. Times handily cues us in with: “to become a prime-time TV alternative.”

Clearly, social video is on the up-and-up. Have you got your moving pictures camera ready?

Read More:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/showyou-brings-a-new-vision-of-tv-to-the-ipad.html#more

http://fangaroo.org/vodpod-founders-launch-showyou-a-social-video-app-for-ios/