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New Media News Every Morning

Google Gives YouTube Channels a Moderator

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If you want to transform an otherwise “one-way” content site to a “tw0-way” community site, you have to do it one step at a time. And that’s what Google is trying to achieve with its priceless possession – YouTube. After rolling out some social sharing features, Google now deems it just about the right time to encourage more social participation not only to the YouTube site as a whole but to individual content channels created by its users. Hence, to facilitate real-time feedback and discussion on YouTube channels, Google Moderator has just been made available to everyone.

Google Moderator is a versatile, social platform that allows any YouTube user to collect comments, questions or ideas on their channels.  What’s fun about this feature is that your channel viewers can watch a particular rise to the top via this Google Moderator commenting/voting feature. Google has been using Moderator as part of its previous interviews with President Obama as well as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In case you’re interested in using Google Moderator on your YouTube channels, here’s how Google describes how Google Moderator works:

” You set the parameters for the dialogue, including the topic, the type of submissions, and the length of the conversation. Watch as submissions get voted up or down by your audience, and then respond to the top-voted submissions by posting a video on your channel. The platform operates in real-time, and you can remove any content that you or your audience flag as inappropriate. You can also embed the platform on your own website or blog.”

To find out some more examples of how people used Google Moderator on YouTube, watch 11 more videos from users who were asked by Google to try out the Google Moderator. It’s kind of fun, actually.

Originally posted on May 27, 2010 @ 4:52 pm

Justin.TV Finally Arrives on the iPhone

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For Justin.TV’s take on the iPhone market, it’s better late than never. While others have already made some applications that allowed online video streaming a long time ago, Justin.TV is banking on its million of users to make their iPhone venture a successful one.

Unfortunately though, Justin.TV’s iPhone doesn’t allow you to record your own video and stream it live yet. Although this feature is set for a future release. Still, the application is worth taking a look at as it brings some pretty good features.

The app lets you connect to your existing Justiv.TV account or create an account if you’re new to Justin.TV within the application.  The moment you logged in to Justin.TV via the app, you will be presented with a list of featured videos and screen caps.  You can tap on any of these videos and watch it stream on your iPhone. If you want to watch more videos other than the ones suggested by the app, you can always use the app’s search function. The app will also let you delete video channels from the menu initially given to you.

Another major feature of the Justin.TV iPhone app is the chat facility that you can find at the bottom right-hand corner of the video screen. It allows you to chat from within the app. You can also share channels with friends via the iPhone’s email facility. Future plans include sharing on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

The Justin.TV app is available now for free download from the iTunes Apps Store.

Via NewTeeVee

Originally posted on March 23, 2010 @ 5:34 am

YouTube Overhauls its Video Page, Hoping We Will All Like It

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YouTube is currently overhauling its standard video page view into something that it considers as one of the site’s biggest redesigns ever. Basically once the redesign is finished, you will noticed two major changes – new playlist interface, search queue and integrated comments.

The new playlist interface will now include an option for autoplay mode which if turned on will automatically bring you to the next video once the current video has finished playing. If you don’t want like this feature, you can always turn it off anytime. But if the search results consist of robusts set of videos You Tube will automaticall play these videos one after the other. This will now become a standard in all of the YouTube videos.

As for the search queue, this feature will let you add videos to your queue. While the integrated comments will now lists both text and video responses to trigger conversation around a video.

The new video page view is currently being tested by selected individuals. Once testing is done, expect the new video page view to appear the next time you check out YouTube.

Or, if you can’t wait that long, check out this preview site to prepared yourself for the coming changes in the way you watch video on YouTube.

Hope you like the new page view. Honestly, it’s way cleaner and more organized than the current interface.

Via Business Insider

 

Originally posted on February 26, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

Google to Force Users to Stop Using IE6

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If Microsoft could not make Internet Explorer 6  users to upgrade to IE8 Google might actually succeed in doing so. And what could be a better way of forcing users to let go of the old IE6 web browser? – By disabling YouTube support. But Google is not doing this to make IE6 users upgrade to IE8 but rather to a more advance browser which could either be Google’s own Chrome browser, IE8, Opera Mini 10, Safari 4 and Firefox 3.6.

So if you’re still using IE6 and try to visit YouTube, you will see a message prompting you that you are using an older browser and that while you may still enjoy watching videos, after March 13, YouTube will stop supporting it. And unless you upgrade to newer browsers you will no longer enjoy new features that will be introduced after the said date. The message will appear for three weeks until you upgrade to a newer browser.

Interestingly, while Microsoft is not really that active and pretty succesful in convincing IE users to upgrade to the latest version, Google’s strategy might actually work. I’m pretty sure majority of these IE6 users will not want to miss out on the good things that YouTube is about to offer in the future.

Another interesting point here, which I think Microsoft should be thankful for is the fact that Google is forcing users to abandon IE6, it is still suggesting IE8 as an alternative browser.

Let’s see whether this strategy will gain Google more users for its Chrome browser  and whether users will finally stop using IE6.

Originally posted on February 23, 2010 @ 5:35 pm

YouTube Tests a Cleaner, Less Cluttered Video Page

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YouTube is currently testing out a new layout of its video page, a more simplified and streamline video page if I may say so – all for the hopes of offering the best possible watching experience to users. The new video page is currently on an opt-in  basis, but anyone can try it out even if their primary language is not English. However, all the elements in the video page will be in English.  Like any of its opt-in feature, you can easily go back to the old video page via a single click.

So, what does the new video page offers? There’s quite a lot actually and these include:

Streamlined look and functionality – The new YouTube video page is now more subdued, stripped down, and simpler than before.  The redesign was aimed at offering advanced features in the highest way possible for users. The new YouTube video page focuses more on the video rather than the add-on elements that you see on a normal YouTube video page.

Smarter “next up” video list – This is a pretty cool feature of the new YouTube video home page. It takes into consideration how you found a particular video and will queue your next video to watch based on how you arrived at the current video. For example if you’ve used the search facility, the rest of the search results will be placed on the right side of the video page – making it easier for  you to check out the rest of the video search results.

Less cluttered design and united description and stats – You can now find more specific information about the video you’re watching in one place – underneath the video. If you click on “description”, you’d see more information about the video you are currently watchin.

Action Bar  is Now Cleaner –  The new YouTube video home page now has a cleaner “sharing” action bar. Sharing, rating, saving or flagging a video are now all grouped in one place.

Simpler Video Rating Scheme – Yes, it’s now a matter of selecting – “like or don’t like. Sound s familiar? In addition, if you like a video, it will be automatically added to your favorites.

New labels for video size and video quality controls – Aside from the usual selection of how you want to view a video, YouTube is also offering new size control .

Search while you watch – While watching a video, you can conduct a search and the results will be displayed on the right side of the page.

More prominent channel/subscriber placement and a new “see more videos” feature –

The “subscribe” button is now placed on the top of the video, right near the title. In addition, there’s is now an arrow next to the number of uploads on the person’s channel to let you view more videos from uploaded by that person.  Hence it’s now easier to find other videos.

If you want to try out the new YouTube video page, click here.

Originally posted on January 21, 2010 @ 4:06 pm