Looks like YouTube is down…
Yes, YouTube appears to be down currently. Looks like it’s down at least 30 minutes now (as of 12:45pm Eastern) based on Corsin’s note. I’ve received nine emails and a batch of Twitter messages asking if it’s down so here is my confirmation that it’s down for me as well.
Try out Magnify.net.
It’s back 🙂
I’m not a “video person” but I am liking Seesmic a great deal these days…
Mary Hudson says hello to Seesmic:
If Mark Cuban were to hypothetically run for president in 2008, he might want to consider Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens for his running mate based on these types of sentiments…
In an open letter to Internet service providers published earlier this week, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban calls for telecoms to put an end to peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing. Cuban expresses concerns that P2P “freeloaders” are clogging the tubes with commercial content. His letter doesn’t focus on piracy, however, and instead primarily attacks companies that use P2P for legitimate commercial applications. We’re always interested to read the musings of Mr. Cuban, but this time we’re pretty sure he’s missed the point…
This argument comes from the man who funded Grokster’s legal defense back in the day and invested approximately $1.7 million in P2P company Red Swoosh. Cuban has been focused on the problems of bandwidth to the home for some time, however, telling Ars in 2006 that he is in favor of a tiered Internet.
Seriously, how out of touch is Mark Cuban?
Mark Cuban to ISP’s: block all P2P traffic; Ars to Cuban: um, no
Great study on the alarming declines in reading by young adults and college educated adults from the National Endowment for the Arts:
The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming. Although there has been
measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level,
all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general
decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading
ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates.
These negative trends have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear,
the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications.
Dave Winer writes today regarding TinyURL’s recent downtime and what it means for the web:
Now that URL length has become an issue for users, it might be even better for designers to view URLs as part of site design. Look at the address for the page for the Wii at Amazon. Wouldn’t it be easier to find if the address were:
Try clicking on it — it actually works!
Why should a user ever see the longer crappy url?
In other words, url-shortening isn’t just for Twitter users, it’s for everyone. Maybe most people don’t look at the urls, but some do, and maybe more would if they made more sense?
Imagine if web developers would start taking link optimization into account along with search engine optimization. As Winer points out, long link strands are increasingly becoming irrelevant as most people just go to Google if they need a link they can’t remember and click from there.
However, if you’re selling a product or a service, how valuable is it that the link to that product or service have an increasingly easy format and structure for users or customers to remember? Perhaps not valuable for all merchants or advertisers… but potentially very valuable for many.
Expect to hear more about link optimization as the web grows up and grows out to mobile.
We should be listening to what the kids are saying and watching what they are doing as we endeavor to create a better web. Otherwise, we’ll continue to fill the role of typical adults and muck the web up:
Rather than a teacher creating class blogs, and registering all the students one by one, and creating a single feed of their posts, it’s the students who are doing this around their friendship or collaborative work groups. Since the content and mechanism are in the hands of the students we see the same exponential growth in content and delivery that we have seen in the real world net, but have really struggled to harness for education. I’d argue that with increased flexibility in the means of delivery we’d also see increased content creation to mould around all these different media.
Imagine if Facebook took that to heart! There’s wisdom in youth.
Given eBooks or the real thing, I’ll gladly take my 1.0 paper books…
“If you would know how a man treats his wife and his children, see how he treats his books.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Having become a father just six weeks ago, I’m already recognizing the patterns of behavior that my daughter and I share. While she’s not playing with Barbie’s yet, she’s becoming very tactile as she continues to try and figure out this strange new world that she’s joined.
I love my toys. My toys these days are phones and laptops and all sorts of geeky gizmo’s. This week, I got my first Macbook Pro and I’m using it for productivity reasons while also treating it like a toy. I’m sure Mary Hudson will do the same as she grows and starts to put the toys she enjoys playing with to use as learning tools.
So, my question… is there a difference between toys and tools? Can a hammer be both an instrument of creativity and enjoyment as well as a way to get things done?
Personally, I don’t see a difference between the two. Hopefully my experience as a father will either confirm or prove wrong my theory.
Thought this was funny (and telling) for Valleywag readership (though Robert Scoble’s blog is at "Elementary School" level):
If you’re wondering, this site is at "Genius Level." Whatever that means.
The Blog Readability Test. What level of education is required to understand your blog?
Google recently socked PayPerPosters with a decrease of PageRank to 0. Harsh, but needed in my opinion. If you’re going to dance to Google’s music, you’ve got to be willing to pay the band.
Robert Scoble makes the point that:
Bloggers beware. If you just write great content and put the ads around the content like everyone else does you won’t be messing with Google and Google won’t mess with you.
VCDan writes in the comments to that post:
GOOG’s latest move isn’t about disclosure or search relevance. IZEA’s launch of http://www.SocialSpark.com (prior to this GOOG move) with mandatory disclosure, transparent RealRank, no-follow links, and face-based analytics positions IZEA to lead on transparency and convert even more bloggers from AdSense to sponsored social media.
Which got me thinking… one of the people that I listen to the most when it comes to all things web, Jim Kukral, has similar things to say about SocialSpark.
In fact, Jim says that Izea should dump PPP as a brand and focus on SocialSpark.
So, the big question is can a con-man reform himself and can Ted Murphy rebrand Izea and SocialSpark as separate from the PayPerPost stigma? I’m not so sure, but it will be fun to see how bloggers (and Google) handles SocialSpark’s upcoming release.
Google makes moves to protect organic relevancy « Scobleizer
For all of its noise, "user generated content" can sometime be a huge help.
Yahoo Answers, for example, is sometimes a great resource when you have a random question like when a new laptop will arrive…
Does FedEx Deliver on Saturdays, I mean regular ground delivery.?
Does FedEx Deliver on Saturdays, I mean regular ground delivery.? – Yahoo! Answers
John Gruber tweeted a great and intriguing thought tonight…
Almost a year ago, I responded to a ZDNet post calling TinyURL the "next YouTube" (saying that was a ludicrous proposition):
I can’t speak for Doc, but I don’t think he would agree that TinyURL is a stealth intention engine. It’s a way to send links without taking up too much space. It’s not YouTube. It’s not an intention engine. It’s not an attention engine. Simply put, it’s a useful tool, but it’s one that is quickly becoming obselete as the intention architecture of the web as we know it continues to change.
After a year of using Twitter, I have to admit that I wish there was a URL shortening service that I knew would be around for years and years since my tweets are being indexed and I would love for the links there to continue to point to their intended targets for perpetuity. Using TinyURL or any of the other URL shortening services is putting a great deal of hope and faith in their longevity and good intentions.
So, while I still don’t think TinyURL is the next YouTube, I think John may be on to something… a URL shortening service from a major player would be more than welcome for those us confining our thoughts (and intentions) into 140 characters on an hourly basis.
I use Google Reader to plow through about 500 feeds (mostly marketing or tech related) and publicly "share" items that I find particularly interesting throughout the day.
If you’d like to get into the whole RSS or syndication thing but don’t have time to read through a bunch of feeds, you can subscribe to (or just visit) my shared items page. Consider it a "best-of" the affiliate, search, performance and tech marketing universe.
samharrelson’s shared items
Earlier this week I was on a social media panel for the Triangle Interactive Marketing Association in Raleigh, NC with pr guru Peter Shankman.
We were speaking to a highly marketing literate crowd of about 100 or so offline and online companies interested in the social media space. The question of privacy came up, and Peter made the excellent point that:
"Privacy is currency."
This is an incredibly powerful statement for marketers to keep in mind as we explore and try to find the new metrics that will adequately measure the online space. I brought up the issue of "attention metrics" and "attention currency" when someone asked about how to monetize Twitter or Facebook. Looking back, I think Peter’s theory of privacy currency is even more compelling and takes things like attention into its fold.
Keep that in mind when deploying social media campaigns or when attempting to "monetize" Facebook et al.
In relation to Peter’s point, my closing statement went along the lines of "online privacy might be a tightly held currency and an illusion, but permission is not."
In other words, the marketing metrics of the 21st century (both online, offline and in the strange hybrid of relativist space that exists between them) will swing between the pendulums of privacy and permission.
Magnify.net is one of the most interesting places on the web if you’re int video, aggregation or user generated content.
They’re announcing a new video blogging platform today to be led by a daily show from one of my favorite online people, Chris Brogan.
NEW YORK – November 16, 2007 — Video Blogging goes mainstream with a new free service. Magnify.net today announced that they will enable anyone who is interested in video blogging to jump in, without needing a video camera, a deck or even web design software.
Magnify.net is releasing to private beta, a new video blogger in a box toolset with an intuitive, plug-and-play Webcam capture tool that allows creators to build a Vlog page, put up all their own graphics and design elements. With just a webcam, their Vlog can go live. Magnify.net also offers stylish and slick templates to make the graphic design process drag-and-drop simple.
Podcamp co-founder and online media guru Chris Brogan will host a daily video blog called “Attention Upgrade” to showcase Magnify’s new platform during the private beta. Chris Brogan and Magnify.net are inviting others to request an invitation if they are interested in video blogging and providing feedback at privatebeta@magnify.net
This is why I went to Wofford College:
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/271548489
I’ve updated the “Publications” page up in the menu bar to reflect some of the places I’ve spoken recently and how to get in touch with me if you’d like for me to speak at your meeting or show.
Sure it’s a little vain, but I’ve gotten more and more requests for this type of thing recently so I wanted to make it easier to find and see examples of my previous speaking engagements or publications:
I’m available to speak to groups interested in social media, affiliate marketing, performance marketing or web metrics. Contact me if you’d like to have me speak to your group.
Here are a few places where I’ve spoken and published:
Looks like Twitter is figuring out a new way to monetize by including relevant social networking tools.
Personally, I like this one:
Foamee is a free service that helps track who you owe beers to (and vice versa) using the popular messaging service, Twitter.