The Utube blog 2.0

Chad Hurley talks about founding of YouTube

Thanks to Liz Gannes at Newteevee for videotaping Chad Hurley's recent talk about the found of YouTube.  It's below.

Does YouTube have a serious "girl fight" problem?

I've already written about this problem of "girl fight" videos on YouTube.  See here and here.  With the recent felony case of 8 high school girls and guys beating up another girl in Florida, it finally is getting attention in the national press.  This NBC segment is quite good, given the constraints of national news on TV.

It's interesting that the judge in the case forbid the high school students who engaged in the beating from going on MySpace or YouTube, or it sounds like the Internet in general. YouTube's user policy states "Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it."  But it appears to be pretty easy to find videos of girls fighting and also guys.  Here's one that has been up since December 2007 and has over 160,000 views.

WARNING: Graphic violence and language.  Viewer discretion.

Viacom v. YouTube: my copyright class weighs in

News:  Today, we discussed the Viacom v. YouTube case in my copyright class.  I use TurningPoint technology that allows me to instantly poll my class through PowerPoint slides.  88% of my class concluded that YouTube falls within the Section 512 safe harbors.  That's a very high percentage--indeed, one that I find surprising based on previous votes in my class.  In difficult cases, my class tends to split closer to 50/50 or 60/40, as you might expect.  But rarely does my class vote in one-sided fashion unless the case is pretty easy -- which isn't exactly how I would characterize the YouTube case.  I may have some more discussion with my class on Monday, and if I find anything illuminating about the vote, I'll try to post it.

Analysis:  I think the voting technology has made me wonder why copyright defendants do not request jury trials in every single case.  I would think a jury increases the chances of the defendant winning in cases with arguable defenses.

Below is Viacom's complaint v. YouTube

YouTube strikes major copyright deal with Japan Rights Clearance

News: Karaoke is popular in Japan and, of course, elsewhere.  So what happens when thousands of people record themselves karaoking and post the videos on YouTube?  Well, for Japanese music, YouTube has worked out a 1-year royalty deal to pay Japan Rights Clearance to allow people to continue to make these amateur karaoke videos and share them online.  A similar deal has been hashed out with JASRAC.  (More)

Analysis:  Good deal.  This deal benefits the public and those Japanese amateurs singers or just karaoke fanatics on YouTube.  YouTube is essentially acting as an intermediary and arranging the copyright deal that ratifies the user practice.  I have an article coming out in October that discusses the importance of these user practices -- I will share a draft soon.  The Japanese deal raises a couple questions in my mind: 

1.  Will a similar deal be hashed out in the United States, with the likes of ASCAP and others?  (It may well be that YouTube's prior deals with some of the music labels/publishers may have covered some of this.)

2.  How can YouTube afford to pay for all of this?  YouTube is doing a public service right now by enabling people to do a lot of things with video without the need for users to get copyright licenses, but YouTube needs to make money somehow.

YouTube has 80 million videos

News:  According to Red Herring, YouTube currently has over 80 million videos (+ Eric Schmidt said that 10 hours of video are uploaded each second) and 3 million people who post videos on the site.

Analysis:  The 3 milllion people who post videos sounds surprisingly small to me.

YouTube provides "video analytics" tool allowing users to track where viewers originate

News:  As announced on its blog, YouTube has deployed a new set of "analytics" tools to give users more data about where viewers of their videos come from.  Here's how YouTube describes it:

"For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.

"How does this help you? Well, using these metrics, you can increase your videos' view counts and improve your popularity on the site. For instance, you might learn that your videos are most popular on Wednesdays, that you have a huge following in Spain, or that new videos that play off previous content become more popular more quickly. With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences, and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site. (Maybe even post your next video in Spanish?) And for those of you who are also partners, the more popular a video is, the more advertising revenue it can generate."

Analysis:  First thing first, "Insight" is so hard to find on YouTube.  Here's how you find the button to get the data:  you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under "My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos."  Someone in user interface should be fired for burying this function in a place where few people can find it. 

But once you get to Insight, it does deliver some insight.  For example, I now have confirmation that most of the recent viewers of my video reviewing Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc restaurant in Napa Valley originate from California, as I guessed.  I do like this basic information. 

But the "popularity" ranking, which tabulates how popular the video is among all videos from a region, seems pretty pointless to me.  It would be far better to have comparisons by subject matter for different genres.  People can already guess how popular -- or not -- their videos are by simply looking at the total number of views. 

YouTube slowly improving video quality -- selectively, not yet HD

News:  At long last, YouTube is finally doing something about the poor video quality on its site.  Basically, nearly every other video sharing site has better quality than YouTube.  Earlier this month,  YouTube announced that it will be selectively rolling out some higher quality videos.  Here's what YouTube said:

"How do you watch higher quality videos? On your Account page you're now able to choose "always show me higher quality when available" or "never show me higher quality." We suggest you select "always show me..." only if you have a fast internet connection, otherwise you might find that videos don't play as quickly or smoothly as you're used to. Higher quality videos also have a link right below the video player which will allow you to select between the normal or higher quality settings.

"We want to help everyone understand that YouTube will continue to evolve with the videos you're creating. We're especially excited about offering this upgrade in video quality to our community of filmmakers and animators, who have been requesting this feature for some time. As more of you guys produce great-looking videos, we want to make sure they can be seen in all their glory. So we'll continue to increase quality behind the scenes and make tweaks to support your uploads. (Remember, we can now support uploads up to 1GB in size.)

"You may also wonder how video quality is chosen. Our general philosophy is to make sure that as many people as possible can access YouTube and that videos start quickly and play smoothly. That's one reason why you don't see us racing to call this "Super Duper YouTube HD," because most people don't want to wait a long time for videos to play."

Has Google given up on making money from YouTube?

News: Google CEO Eric Schmidt made some interesting remarks this week.  He admitted that Google has yet to find the right monetization strategy, all the while 10 hours of video are uploaded each second to YouTube (requiring more server space).  He also said, ""Our primary focus is on the users, not on the revenue side."

The Obama girl loses 2007 YouTube video awards

News:  YouTube recently announced the winners of its 2007 YouTube video awards.  In what may have been a mild upset, the Obama girl lost out to this world political video by AvaazOrg.  Here are the winners:

1.  Most Adorable -  Ethan laughing baby video (got the boy on an AIG commercial). 

2.  Best Comedy - Harry Potter puppets (I don't get it, but I haven't read Potter).

3.  Best Commentary - WhattheBuckshow

4.  Most Creative -  Human Tetris

5.  Best Eyewitness - Battle at Kruger (buffaloes v. lions v. crocodiles):

6. Most Inspirational - Blind Painter

7. Best instructional - How to solve Rubik's cube

8. Best Music - Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday

9. Best Series - The Guild

10. Best Short film - My Name is Lisa

11. Best Sports - Balloon Bowl (cool!)

Wired article on Hollywood's discovery of new talent on MySpace + Web 2.0 sites

News:  Wired has an excellent article discussing how Hollywood is using Web 2.0 sites to find new talent.  Director Gus Van Sant posted a page on MySpace announcing a casting call for his skateboarder movie Paranoid Park and discovered the movie's star Gabe Nevins that way.  Will Farrell's comedy site Funny or Die had this casting call for Marilyn Monroe impersonators to say farewell to President Bush in the movie Farewell Mr. President.