Written on February 26, 2008 – 5:07 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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Video service VIDDIX - launched in beta today - found a great way to enrich your online video experience. They allow you to add web content to video, since it consists of two panels. The video is playing at the left, while different web content - such as slides, pictures, YouTube videos, HTML and Flash embeds - shows up in the so-called iPanel at the right. So imagine you interviewed Boris about the Next Web conference, it would look something like this:
The guys from VIDDIX came up with their idea during their study Digital Communications. They graduated on VIDDIX and founded the company Invisios to bring their baby to the market. I hardly see any reasons why their project isn’t gonna be a huge hit. I mean, where YouTube and Slideshare end, VIDDIX is just about to get started. On top of that, the service will probably be really viral, since a lot of bloggers might be tempted to use VIDDIX for screencasts and presentations.
Although they might have to improve their embed function. Since the current one doesn’t bring over VIDDIX’s main advantage, namely the web content. I guess it has something to do with the thing in right bottom corner, yet I can’t figure out. Other from that, I foresee a bright future for VIDDIX.
Written on February 24, 2008 – 1:47 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
A great way to spend this lazy Sunday afternoon is looking up Yamelo and be ready for a music trip down memory lane. This site has collected almost every hit from the sixties and beyond. Just click on a year or search for an artist. Remember your first kiss, school party, rock concert or that first vacation without your parents? All the songs you listened back then, are there.
Yamelo presents the songs as videos, ripped from YouTube. That basically makes it a music video search engine annex directory, with a great interface. Try to look up a song on this page and then compare it with Yamelo, you’ll know what I mean.
I hope the makers of Yamelo will put even more effort in developing the site, and filter out the videos of bad quality. Also, the service lets you relive your greatest memories but wouldn’t it be great if you could also share them? Yamelo would become a beautiful archive of not just music, but also the funny, touching, great and sad stories connected to the melodies.
Could it be? Could Live.com become a bigger web destination than Google.com? If you look at Alexa (Reach: Percentage of Internet users who visit Google and Live.com) it certainly seems so. Just recently Google had to give up its second place on the top 10 list of websites to Youtube but now it has been surpassed in rank even by Live.com and is currently number 4 on the list. As you can see I used a very unscientific method to predict the daily reach for both Google.com and Live.com and Live is clearly on the rise.
Not all data on Compete shows Live.com as the winner but this one (pages per visit) certainly does:
I know these numbers are debatable and are more indications of web traffic and usage but even so, this would have been unthinkable in November 2005 when Live.com launched. Google has long been considered the only viable search destination. My guess is that in 2008 more and more people will start considering alternatives such as Live.com, Yahoo.com and maybe even new players like ManagedQ which we profiled here earlier.
Youtube has an alternative way to browse their content called the ‘Warp Player’. You can access it directly on http://youtube.com/warp_speed or via a small button that you only see when you watch a Youtube video full-screen. It’s that strange icon, with three dots, bottom left, on the right side of the Play button.
Although there is a link on the front page to the Warp Player I can’t seem to find any other information about it. Nothing on the blog and nothing on the dedicated Warp Player page. Not even ONE mention of ‘Warp’ in the extensive Youtube help files.
Maybe Youtube isn’t very proud of their Warp Speed player or they just think it is so self explanatory, like the Play button, that it doesn’t need any further introduction. I can image some people missed it so here is a Youtube Demo Video of a Youtube Video feature
If you want to experience it for yourself click this move, then click the full screen button and then click the Warp Player icon.
Written on January 15, 2008 – 1:04 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, yet in Holland the wireless Internet coverage still isn’t very good. It even seems like that when you’re in desperate need of some entertainment - in the train or bus stop in the middle of nowhere -, the feeling of disappointment is stronger than the satisfied feeling when it IS available. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
So it’s not too surprising that developers world-wide work on applications that make the off line live just a little bit easier. Tooble is a recent result of those ambitions: ‘YouTube comes to iPod’.
Tooble automatically downloads, converts and imports any YouTube video to play on your video iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, or even on your computer with iTunes. Of course you could already watch videos on the iPhone and iPod Touch using GPRS/EDGE, but the only joy that comes from that is making up original ways of swearing about the damn lack of speed.
Google won’t be amused about this service. They’re probably working behind the scenes on some sort of YouTube function for off line applications service Google Gears. And now this small start-up called Gridlock LLC came up with it first.
Thank you guys, for entertaining me during those awful hours of no Internet connection. Want to meet these heroes from Gridlock/ Tooble? You can shake their hands at stand S-1338 at the Macworld Conference in San Fransisco this week.
Written on January 13, 2008 – 2:53 pm Robert Gaal, co-founder of Wakoopa
Are you a saxophonist, pianist, trumpeter or a skilled musician falling in a non-rock category? Then consider yourself summoned. The Foo Fighters want to create the first ever user-generated orchestra at their next performance of The Pretender at the Grammy Awards, and they’re using Youtube and MySpace to do so. Actually, it’s one of the few instances where those two platforms work together. The post on the Youtube blog doesn’t link to MySpace though, so don’t get any funny ideas.
Upload your video here and cross your fingers. If you will excuse me, I have an instrument to master. Just like these guys.
Written on January 12, 2008 – 12:02 am Mike Sheetal, Next Web WebTipr in Japan
As we already in 2008, it’s a good time to look back and see how much the Internet landscape has changed in the last year in Japan.
Internationally there have been some big shakeups, led by the dramatic effects of the meteoric rise of Facebook to prominence, both good and bad. On these shores, too, there has been plenty of online action, so we’ve rounded up some of the events that have reshaped the Japanese Internet landscape this year.
The big hit
Nico Nico Douga
Any discussion about the top Internet stories of 2007 starts and finishes with Nico Nico Douga. This video-sharing site is uniquely Japanese, blending online video-sharing with user-created, short chat-like text comments that are synced to the movies, allowing whole conversations to flow across the frame. The type of content has ranged from the crude to the incredibly insightful and inventive, and some users have even subtitled music videos with the song’s lyrics. The videos themselves are a geek’s paradise, consisting mainly of anime, video-game footage and videos of young ladies. The unique format and addictive nature of the Web site has millions tuned in, giving it one of the most dramatic growth surges ever as it went from a January launch to become the seventh-most visited Web site in Japan as of December, according to global site-ranking service Alexa.com.
Mobile gaming gets the big company treatment
Disney Wonder Days
Following in the footsteps of the innovative 2006 avatar-based mobile-gaming platform MobaGe-Town, this April Disney threw in its hat with a big press push and its own avatar-based game and social-interaction platform. Disney Wonder Days capitalized on the brand popularity and makes its money from monthly subscriptions. The range of games is pretty slick and offers Disney fans a healthy selection of characters. What it represented mostly was media giant Disney jumping into the mobile social media space to capture the hugely lucrative children’s market. You know the scene is changing when the big names get involved. (more…)
Written on January 11, 2008 – 12:03 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Tripr is a recently launched travel site where people can post video reviews of the hotels they’ve visited. The goal of the Dutch founders is to create an archive of reviews, so that visitors on the basis of the videos can determine whether they want to stay in a hotel or not.
When a visitor decides to book a hotel based on a review, the makers of the video earn 33 percent of the commission.
Jan Kooman, founder of Tripr.TV: “We’re some sort of YouTube for the travel industry. Because the videos are shot by hotel guests, visitors can get a good impression before booking. Moving images are more realistic than those often outdated pictures”.
In the press release (Dutch), the founders claim that the visitor gets an independent impression of the hotel. I dare to differ.
If I were to shoot a video for money, I would show the most beautiful parts of the hotel and, for instance, not zoom in on the dirty parts of the bath room. And really, I’m a nice guy. It’s just that I would feel like I was shooting a commercial, instead of a review. Why would I tell about my negative experiences if I could earn more money by drawing a nice picture?
When asking Kooman for a reaction on this remark, he said: “The good thing about video is that it is particularly hard to disguise the truth. On traditional websites with the well-known pictures, faking beauty is way easier. You just take a good picture from the right perspective and you’re done. When you’re filming, you’re actually walking through the hotel. Moreover, we’ll also publish video reviews made by an independent Tripr adviser”.
The customers and ‘independent’ adviser have the same goal though, and that’s making money. I agree with Koopman that it’s harder to disguise the truth when using video, instead of stamp-sized outdated pictures. Those photographers can turn crappy rooms into royal suites. Yet I don’t think that the label ‘review’ is the right one, since it’s more like a user generated commercial.
This doesn’t mean I don’t like the idea. I’m pretty sure that next time I want to book a night in a hotel, I can’t resist the temptation of checking what the room is like through the eyes of others.
Written on February 26, 2008 – 5:07 pm
Written on February 19, 2008 – 8:51 am
Written on January 13, 2008 – 2:53 pm
Written on January 12, 2008 – 12:02 am
When asking Kooman for a reaction on this remark, he said: “The good thing about video is that it is particularly hard to disguise the truth. On traditional websites with the well-known pictures, faking beauty is way easier. You just take a good picture from the right perspective and you’re done. When you’re filming, you’re actually walking through the hotel. Moreover, we’ll also publish video reviews made by an independent Tripr adviser”.
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