YouTube overtakes MySpace
I must admit I did a double take when I first saw the headline on Mediaguardian.co.uk. My eye had swapped around the two halves of the word ‘overtakes’.
Not quite sure if this PR coup by Alexa warrants a slot on the front page, but Mediaguardian does tend to favour fashionable trends. I can’t find it on any other sites as of 11am, so at least it’s exclusive.
But this kind of news does provide an ideal opportunity to contact YouTube direct and ask the question which I’ve yet to see answered: how, and importantly, when does it intend to generate revenues?
Is anyone else having major problems logging into Blogger?
Is it time to move to Write/Typepad?
Technorati influences running order on BBC Newsnight
I’ve just received BBC Newsnight’s email newsletter and was shocked at what I’d read.
Daniel Pearl, Newsnight’s deputy editor revealed that as well as sifting through the thousands of spam emails Jeremy Paxman gets (his email is easy to guess apparently), the running order of the show was changed because of what was kicking off on Technorati.
It takes seconds on a site like Technorati to discover what people are talking about and searching for. This has begun to make an impact on the programme. So, for example, late on Monday night the most talked about subject in the blog world was Newt Gingrich’s appearance on America’s Meet the Press, in which he said that we are in the midst of a Third World War.
The next day we contacted Gingrich and that night he repeated his claims on Newsnight (watch it here). So in that sense blogging had an immediate impact on Newsnight’s running order.
I knew popular and respected blogs would influence news or at least provide good commentary during a report – but to hear MSM are using sites like Technorati to gauge public feeling is incredible.
It makes sense – want a quick indication of what the public is reading / talking about? Look for the story with the biggest amount of bookmarks or diggs.
Of course, the community on Technorati doesn’t really represent a cross section of the world at large (unless there are six billion 24 year old white mate geeks in the world), but as web penetration proliferates, these sites will become more reliable.
Feedburner is costing me traffic
Watching my stats, I notice that lots of visitors (including some from BBC.co.uk) are abandoning sign up to my newsletter / alerts once they’re asked to sign up for a Feedburner account. Why?
Is it that painful? Should I change provider?
10 tips on writing a blog
This has been sitting in my Favourites for a while, so thought I’d share this inspiring piece by Mark Bernstein writing on AListApart.com.
YouTube.com copyright infringement debate rumbles on
It’s all kicked off on the BBC’s Newsnight blog. Lots of fors and againsts, but a great debate nonetheless (my posts are down as kenobi as usual).
How will blogs evolve?
This is a perfect example of how blog platforms will allow users to post comments.
Posting replies and comments in blogs and social network forums are seen as the new email. The thinking is that a) office workers in their 30s/40s use email to chat, b) office workers in their 20s have grown up with IM and use it to chat and c) teens have grown up with blogs and use them to chat.
It’s a fair point – why send an email when you can add a comment in a friend’s welcoming and familiar forum / webspace? But this video and its replies takes the concept further. Here we have a string of replies and video posts. Old news on YouTube, but it’s a great standard to have on all blogs.
Is this how blogs will look very soon? Instead of text posts and a pic, post a short video?
Anyway, take a look at the video. Skip it if you get bored, but double click on the YouTube logo and see how many video replies this has had.
Expect this feature to integrated into the likes of MySpace or Yahoo! 360 as standard: ‘Post a text blog reply’ or ‘Post a video blog reply’.
Interestink…
Video over editorial
Quick snapshot: since I started this blog, my user session logs are averaging not much more than one minute.
This is massively affected by a) search engine spiders visiting my side for 0:00 seconds and b) my content’s a bit stale thanks to the demands of a full time content bod.
That said, my session times have shot up since adding embedded video. I’ve now got people sitting on my site for over six or seven minutes.
Thank you YouTube.com
Webby award winner shuts down
Prince, the real pioneer of mobile phone txt terminology, has decided to shut down his music site just weeks after winning a Webby Award, the equivalent of the online Oscars.
This story suggests the site was facing some criticism by fans.
Either way, it’s a shame if this is the end of the road for NPG Music Club. Okay, I balked at the $100 sign up fee and ran away quickly, but the site was an example of what can be done without the assistance of a music publisher.
Bowie and George Michael have tried it (the latter failed), but NPG seemed to have got most of the ingredients right. Was it just the huge fee? It’s since dropped, but is this the only reason?
Prince seems to have churned out more ‘material’ than the BBC over the last 10 years, so I’d dispute suggestions that material was rarely released.
Maybe it marks a new twist in the diminutive pop star’s career…
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