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YouTube Now Makes Music Playlists

by Kristen Nicole on January 21, 2010

YouTube is getting into music videos now, with a new Discovery Project being launched in TestTube, YouTube’s experimental features lab. From the Discovery Project you can search for music, and create your own playlist accordingly. You can mix and match results, and then view them in a custom playlist.

There are a number of services that already offered similar options, many of which were based solely on YouTube content. There has always been a wealth of music available on YouTube, though some of it is far from the official, quality content you would want for inclusion in a custom playlist. Of course, playlists can be shared with friends and saved for later plays.

YouTube’s ongoing efforts for premium content on the site has resulted in some official music videos that are part of YouTube’s Music Discovery Project, according to TechCrunch. Partnerships with distributors can only make such an offering from YouTube better and more feature-ridden for end users, which could possibly detract from the ongoing success of those services that already create music playlists from YouTube content.

Ultimately, YouTube could find itself knee-deep in a music search and recommendation service. The potential for Google-owned YouTube to move in this direction would likely be a niche effort, but a useful one nevertheless. I only say this because a number of content-aggregating services are finding ways to offer combined access to as many of your media platforms as possible, from a single point of access.

This means that the provision of getting content to users in the most efficient way possible could very well be the use of combined media on a single site. In this regard, YouTube could also become one of those access points for multimedia, making it easier for consumers to keep up with their shared content.

While we’re not likely to see a whole lot of activity for the Discovery Project in the immediate future, Google is also ramping up its efforts towards promoting music services and search results through its primary pages. The acquisition of LaLa has brought playable search results to many queries, and the Discovery Project could aid Google in its efforts to create a more contextual search experience that gives us what we’re looking for instead of a resourceful web page.

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First off, thank you to Brian for allowing me to do a guest post on Bub.  Last week I contacted Brian to solicit some advice on how I could get the word out about a little video I recently released on YouTube.

A contest video.

First, let me preface by saying that I’ve never entered a video contest before. The opportunity cost just didn’t make sense – taking time out from other work to essentially create a free commercial for someone and then shamelessly self-promote it in hopes of winning a gift certificate (?) Didn’t seem worth it.

Then I came across this contest sponsored by Lash Allure MD. There’s a $100,000 pot at stake – which, needless to say, is much larger than most other online video contest winnings. Immediately, my mind was racing about the web content I could fund with 100k. No more brand or studio pitches in 2010? I’d be in heaven.

The best part (or, in some cases, the worst)? The winner is NOT chosen based on a subjective judging process. The system is clear: the person with the most “votes” wins. Each YouTube star rating counts as one vote, and one comment, per user, per day, counts as a vote. Simple, quantifiable. And yet, a little unfair for those who don’t have massive YouTube followings.

So I decided to enter. First with my own video, and then after realizing that I would never win on my own regards, I teamed up Olga Kay, a YouTuber with about 70,000 subscribers. To incentivise people to help, we decided to offer up $10,000 of the prize money to dedicated commenters. Every day for 20 days, we pose a new question in the annotation on the video. Answer the question, and you could win $500. $500 to twenty people = $10,000 total giveaway.

Yes, this was our screengrab. I know, I know.

Shameless.

It’s now Dec. 12th – only 8 days before the contest ends. We are currently in 2nd place, behind a witty YouTube blogger with a big following, but with the a little nudge here and there from the right people, we could definitely win the grand prize.

We’ve received several little endorsements from friends – including tweets from Ryan Higa and Dave Days – and brought on a new, third partner – Phil DeFranco.

We are asking for your help because this isn’t about making money to put in a savings account. It’s a viral contest, and as such, Olga, Phil and I want to put that money toward advancing our own web content initiatives.  Not to mention that we would still give away $10k (and a few other little surprises) to our commenters.

It’s hard for me to ask any favors of anyone, but in this case, I’m swallowing my pride.

So, please, if you have a chance today (and for the next 8 days) – rate and comment this video here —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df2_CZCfAaE – and RT if you can :-)

Oh, and for all of you business owners out there looking to hold promotional video contests – take a cue from Lash Allure MD. By judging a video contest on ratings and comments, rather than on the video content itself, the company is benefiting from the self-promotional efforts of people like me as well as the engagement and interaction of potential customers who are rating/commenting on the videos. Smart.

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Streaming TV on YouTube?

by Michelle Lentz on December 1, 2009

Google is talking about offering first-run TV shows on YouTube for a fee, similar to the Amazon or iTunes model.  For $1.99, you could view the latest episode of your favorite show, the day after it aired on network television.

The catch? It’s a streaming video. Unlike iTunes or Amazon, you have to watch it as a streaming video. The video won’t reside on your hard drive.

Sources say the site’s negotiations with the networks and studios that own the shows are preliminary. But both sides seem optimistic, since models for such deals already exist. No comment from YouTube.

The biggest stumbling block may be consumers. That’s because Google (GOOG) is talking about streaming the shows instead of letting consumers download them to their computers, as both Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) do. But the networks and studios, which control pricing, will want to sell the streamed shows at the same price as downloads; they fear that offering them at a different price will force them to go back and rework their existing deals.

Executives at YouTube and TV insist that the disparity is simply a perception problem and cite studies showing that most people who download TV episodes only watch them once, anyway. But that’s a tough sell.

Now, the reason I will occasionally buy shows from iTunes is that I then have the freedom to watch them on my phone, my iPod, my TV, or my laptop. I can watch the show on an airplane because it’s local to my device. Personally, I hate the idea of paying $1.99 for streaming content. So until they figure things out, I’ll definitely stick to free Hulu for the television that I miss and downloading episodes from iTunes for television on the go.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

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The Kosmix Startup Smackdown Ping Pong Tournament

by julieblaustein on November 10, 2009

By Julie Blaustein

Kosmix

Kosmix Ping PongsKosmix’s doubles Ping Pong Tournament held at its head quarters in Mountain View last week was quite the event. Seven of their closest neighbors and potential partners were invited along with a team of bloggers that included myself, Julie “Julie B” Blaustein of Bub.blicio.us and Jennifer “Mediaphyter” Leggio of ZDNet. Kosmix takes not only their work seriously but their Ping Pong even more so. Scattered throughout their office are ping pong balls, rackets and previous trophies – a true testament to their ping pong culture. For this special tournament a two foot high, gold topped trophy with ping pongs was awarded to the winners. Each player’s game name such as “The Octopus” and “The Smasher” made it clear how intent they were in their quest to win. In the end, it was the Kosmix team made up of Nikesh “The Wall” Garera and Ankur “Neo” Jain that were the winners! Check out the hilarious Video of the Kosmix Startup Smackdown shot by Carl Brown of Corduroy Media.

The Contenders included the following companies:

Talenthouse: A platform that provides opportunities to the world’s creative community.

Skyfire: Provides a downloadable, free mobile browser that gives you Web browsing like your PC.

TheFind: Finds every product from every store, every coupon, and every review.

Rythm NewMedia: Mobilizes and Monetizes TV Shows.

Polyvore: Mixes & matches products from your favorite stores. You can then shop looks created by the web’s largest fashion community.

Evernote: Saves your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then it allows you to find them all on any computer or device for free!

Meebo: Instant messages everywhere.

And Kosmix: It is a universal guide to the Web that organizes the Internet through a categorization engine into fun magazine-style topic pages to navigate the web using a countless number of sources including YouTube and Wikipedia. Unlike Mahalo that depends on Human Editors, Kosmix relies on Search Algorithms. Recently launched MeeHive creates customized news pages through very fine tuned aggregation. You can customize your own or a specialized version such as found with FailCon’s version.

Photo Credit: Karl Mueller

Photo Credit: Karl Mueller

The Kosmix Ping Pong Tournament Players

The Kosmix Ping Pong Tournament and its Team Players Photo Credit: Karl Mueller

Kosmix Founder Anand Rajaraman Guards the Ping Pong Trophy

Kosmix Founder Anand Rajaraman Guards the Ping Pong Trophy

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Oversharers.com: Where’s the Mystery?

by Stephanie Schlegel on October 29, 2009

As I shared my recent concert experience via Twitter (and this blog and YouTube) this past weekend, I wondered if anyone would be interested in hearing about it the next day since all the good bits were already published. For being a new media lover, I’m old school by nature and it took some conditioning to share any personal details online but have I crossed that line and become an oversharer?

Occasionally, we all cross the line between “informative” and “too much information” but before social media, those moments were quickly forgotten only to be retold as a funny story between friends. Not anymore, we are living more and more public lives and sharing our personal information on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

I was recently introduced to a blog that chronicles social media oversharing, Oversharers.com. The posts range from funny to gross to NSFW (not safe for work, you have been warned). The blog is a great example that no matter who you are or where you post, remember that your audience may not be limited to your friends and loved ones. So take this as a pre-Halloween cautionary tale, before you describe the revenge your stomach takes on you for your over indulgence in candy corn, think about how much you don’t want that information to appear on this blog the next day.

If only there were an Oversharers Anonymous…
Picture 1

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