Tag Archives | YouTube

China Allegedly Blocks YouTube

Posted by David Worthington on March 24, 2009 at 3:12 pm

China YouTubeGoogle has found itself on the other side of China’s “great firewall'” of Internet censorship. YouTube is presently inaccessible in China, while its foreign minister has assured Reuters that the ruling party is “not afraid of the Internet.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters that he had no knowledge about YouTube being blocked, but Google confirmed to Reuters that the service is unavailable to users in China. The company said that it was working toward a solution, and avoided placing blame on the Chinese government.

The Chinese government has a longstanding practice of filtering Internet traffic by using techniques such as DNS poisoning. Its targets have traditionally included news, religious groups, and anything else that could be construed as critical of its policies, as well as pornography.

According to Reuters, Qin said that Internet regulation was necessary in order to prevent the spread of,”harmful information and for national security.” He also said that China’s 300 million Internet users and 100 million blogs was proof that China’s Internet was “open enough.”

If the government has objected to YouTube’s content, it is likely that Google may cooperate in censoring it, as it does with Google Web search. In any event, here are some YouTube videos that its citizens are missing, with apologies to the ruling party:

Tiananmen Square Protests:

Tibetan Riots:

Protesting Parents of Earthquake Victims Jailed:

Human Rights: Dissidents Placed in Mental Hospitals:

Petitioners Arrested:

Pollution:

Support for Sudanese War Criminals:

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Good Grief, Another Significant Gmail Enhancement: Previews

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 19, 2009 at 11:54 am

gmail1I’ve officially given up trying to keep pace with each and every feature Google adds to Gmail, but this one looks neat: There’s a new Gmail Labs option that enables in e-mail viewing of Flickr and Picasa photos, YouTube videos, and Yelp reviews. Gmail notices links to this content, and simply embeds it in your message so you don’t need to click away to see what a friend has sent you.

Google says it’s interested in talking to other companies with services that could be embedded into Gmail–and it would be pretty neat if the idea was extended to just about any sort of content that anyone ever links to in an e-mail…

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The Joy (and Hazards) of Watching YouTube on TV

Posted by Jose Alvear on March 18, 2009 at 7:38 am

YouTube TVHave you ever wanted to watch YouTube on your TV?

I have, ever since Tivo started allowing YouTube streaming to their DVRs back in July 2008. And I’m here to confess: I’m a huge fan. Watching YouTube on my HDTV has radically changed how I “watch TV”.

One night I decided to do an experiment. I skipped watching regular prime time TV and only watched YouTube videos from my Tivo. I signed in to YouTube, so I could access my favorites, and playlists. Two hours later, I found that it was a very fascinating journey.

What did I watch? Anything that looked interesting, including some of my old YouTube favorites. Mostly, I let the videos lead me to the next one via suggestions and related content. It was an exercise in random discovery. I followed certain YouTube users. Then I would backtrack a bit and find myself on another trail of YouTube discovery. I spent some time watching music videos. I searched for classic Internet favorite videos. I even watched some of YouTube’s promoted videos, and found some of them were pretty good. (My current favorite is something called Thru-You, a YouTube mashup, where someone grabbed random musical clips from YouTube and created awesome songs.)

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White House No Longer Using YouTube

Posted by Ed Oswald on March 2, 2009 at 8:56 am

It appears as if the Obama Administration has decided to stop using YouTube as a method to embed its videos into websites for the Government. Starting with this weeks address, videos are now served in Flash through technology provided by Akamai.

While most seem to be labeling it as a way to answer privacy concerns, I always thought it kind of weird for a government entity to be using a branded solution for streaming media.

Our government (in theory at least) is supposed to not show any favoritism towards any one company. Seeing that big ol’ YouTube logo everytime I watched the President’s address always seemed slightly odd.

If it did have to do with privacy concerns, YouTube had actually made some effort to strengthen its privacy policy for those watching videos on government websites. Apparently the Administration didn’t get the message there.

Videos would still be pushed to YouTube as they have been before. However it now appears that Akamai’s technology will serve them on the actual government site.

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5Words for February 23rd, 2009

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 23, 2009 at 9:22 am

5wordsMonday? Again? Here’s what’s newsy:

AOL beefs up Bebo service.

Microsoft wants severance money back.

Ten iPhone Apps Apple Nixed

Web radio: In trouble. Still.

Sorry, no YouTube Oscar clips.

Yahoo management shakeup imminent.

Microsoft offers free tech training.

Streaming-only Netflix coming. Eventually.

That Last.fm RIAA story? Fiction.

America: Tops in broadband. Really?

J0bs misses Apple annual meeting.

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YouTube Goes Downloadable

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 12, 2009 at 12:33 pm

youtubelogo1Some observant folks noticed last month that YouTube was dabbling with letting users download videos from the site to their hard drives. The YouTube blog just made it official: The company is permitting content providers to allow their videos to be downloaded, either for a fee (via Google Checkout) or for free.

It still sounds fairly experimental: YouTube is only working with a few content sources, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Khan Academy, HouseholdHacker, and PogoBat. And even with them, the download option isn’t universally available–actually, I’m not seeing it on any of the first half-dozen videos I’ve checked.

This isn’t earthshaking news–for one thing, tools like KeepVid have allowed YouTube fans to snag videos and save them for a long time. The YouTube videos are in unprotected MPEG4 format: I assume this means that YouTube isn’t going to enable downloading on the massive amount of stuff it offers that consists of short, unauthorized clips of copyrighted material. And while YouTube is also experimenting with streaming official versions of Hollywood content, it seems unlikely that the entertainment industry is ready to allow DRM-free downloads of current shows. At least right now.

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YouTube Comes to PlayStation 3, Wii

Posted by Jared Newman on January 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Here’s a statistic that’s bandied about by game industry cheerleaders: roughly 40 percent of U.S. homes own a video game console.

It’s also a figure that will likely be loathed by cable providers if more streaming video Web sites follow YouTube’s lead. Yesterday, Google’s video juggernaut launched a sleek interface for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. It was as good a reason as any to dust off Nintendo’s waggle box, so I checked it out. The service is basically what you would expect and hope for–a browsing and viewing experience that’s tailored to the size of your television screen. A similar channel is already available for TiVo owners.

Of course, YouTube is best for short bursts of random entertainment, and it only makes me yearn for support of a full-featured TV Web site, like Hulu or TV.com. See, I recently gave up cable to find out how much content I could replace with the Internet (and I’m not alone). As a cost-cutting measure, it’s great, but running an RGB cable between my computer and laptop isn’t ideal when I just want to lounge on the couch.

Solutions are on the way, like media streamers and possibly HDTVs that can support Hulu, but that requires an extra purchase. If you’re among the 40 percent that already has a gaming console, chances are you’d want it to be the hub for streaming Internet television instead of something extra. There is a utility called PlayOn that lets you watch Hulu and other sites on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but it requires a computer as the middleman. This can get clumsy if your wireless Internet is on the spotty side.

There’s been some hinting at integration with streaming TV Web sites, at least for the Xbox 360. Here’s hoping it actually happens.

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YouTube Adds a Search Bar to Every Embedded Video

Posted by Harry McCracken on December 4, 2008 at 12:29 am

youtubelogo1[UPDATE: My colleague Ed Oswald reminds me that we covered this a month ago. It sounded familiar…]

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington has pointed out a new feature in embedded YouTube videos I hadn’t noticed: a search bar. Mike thinks it’s ugly. I wouldn’t argue that it’s gorgeous, but it’s kind of handy, since it turns every embedded YouTube clip into a mini-YouTube that lets you rummage through the video site’s entire addictive cornucopia of stuff without leaving the site you were on in the first place.

Rather than trying to explain this, I can give you a video and let you try searching right now. Look, here you go:

If, after watching the Shatner Vic-20 ad above, you got in the mood to watch more commercials with Bill, you’d do a search something like the one below. And could watch several hundred clips without ever leaving Technologizer. (The image below is just an image, not live YouTube–as far as I know, you can’t embed search results, although it would be nifty if you could.)

shatner

(You know, I kinda liked Shatner-as-spokesman better back when having William Shatner in your ad wasn’t in itself some sort of allegedly hip, postmodern statement.)

On today’s Web, when a lot of the content and functionality on sites such as Technologizer is really someone else’s embedded service, it’s easy for those of us who do the embedding to feel proprietary and paranoid about changes: All the millions of YouTube videos that folks have incorporated over the past few years now have that search bar, whether we embedders want it there or not. But what really matters is whether YouTube watchers like the new search feature. And I bet they will…

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YouTube Gets a Little Less Sleazy

Posted by David Worthington on December 2, 2008 at 4:27 pm

youtubegYouTube intends to restrict access to content that might be deemed pornographic or profane in a play to broaden its appeal and attract more of the highbrow audience that enjoys watching panda bears sneeze.

In a blog post today, the YouTube team explained the impending changes. In the near future, videos will be algorithmically demoted if they contain sexually suggestive content and naughty words. The video site is also taking measures to place an age restriction on risque content.

Guidelines on what exactly constitutes “sexually suggestive content,” have been published on the YouTube Web site. Some of those are:

* Whether breasts, buttocks, or genitals (clothed or unclothed) are the focal point of the video;

* Whether the video setting is sexually suggestive (e.g. a location generally associated with sexual activity, such as a bed);

* Whether the subject is depicted in a pose that is intended to sexually arouse the viewer;

* Whether the subject’s actions in the video suggests a willingness to engage in sexual activity (e.g. kissing, provocative dancing, fondling); and

* If a subject is minimally clothed, whether the clothing would be acceptable in appropriate public contexts (e.g. swimwear vs. underwear).

There is sure to be some collateral damage resulting from these guidelines, but if one child is speared spared the graphic image of a middle-aged man wearing a poorly fitting Speedo, the future will be a little bit brighter for all of us. The question of when booty poppin goes too far remains open to interpretation.

Additional changes will affect how thumbnails are generated, and revised guidelines for tags, titles, and other metadata may lead to more accurate descriptions of videos.

Feedback left by YouTube users about the blog posting was largely negative. One read, “Youtube was not meant to be a family site. If it continues in this direction it will destroy the basic mission and user base of the site.” Others, however, welcomed the proposed changes as “great news” and “overdue.”

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YouTube Looms Large(r)

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 25, 2008 at 8:37 am

youtubelogo1YouTube may be the Web’s biggest video site, but YouTube’s videos have never been the Web’s biggest. In resolution, that is–in fact, the YouTube player has been looking increasingly cramped and retro compared to its roomy rivals at sites such as Hulu.

As of today, though, YouTube has increased the size of its player to 640 pixels wide–which is, coincidentally enough, the same width as Hulu’s player. The new player is in widescreen 16:9 format, but most content up on YouTube is old-school 4:3, so you usually get black bars. The extra real estate is still nice, though. Examples after the jump.

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