online video Archive

Viddler, a service that aspired to be a stand-out competitor to other video hosting services like YouTube and Vimeo, announced yesterday that, effective immediately, they are going to stop allowing users to sign up for their free personal accounts. All existing personal users of Viddler will be able to maintain their accounts (for the time being, at least), but all future registrations will have to be premium accounts.

Note from Allen: the announcement to remove the ability to create personal accounts comes three months after Viddler founder Rob Sandie was told by the board that his, “services were no longer required”. He was going to remain on the Viddler board but he updated the post to note that he resigned a few weeks later from the board.

Following is the announcement that was sent out to existing personal account holders: Continue reading “Viddler Waves Good-Bye to Personal Accounts” »

Online video service Kyte has just announced that they will be terminating their free service as of August 31, 2011. The email I received includes the following explanation on why they are discontinuing the free service, “After launching in 2007 with mobile “life streaming” media sharing apps for consumers and participating in the explosion of online and mobile video, it has been a good run.  Now that we are totally focused on our professional offering, we can no longer maintain the free service.”

You can check out our CenterNetworks Kyte channel – I haven’t used it in years but did use it pretty heavily for the 2008 Techcrunch and Demo events for startup demos and the famous “schwag bag” videos (in case you are wondering, Techcrunch had the better bag).

Here are the instructions to download your media from Kyte — you need to do this by August 29:

• Log into kyte.tv.
• The “My Kyte” section will display a list of your channels on the right.
• Under channel name click Manage Channel.
• The Manage Channel page will display.
• Click Media Download URL.
• A new tab/page will launch with a list of all shows and media on the channel.
• For each show, right click the Download link and click Save Link As.
• If you have multiple channels, go back to the My Kyte tab/page and follow the above steps for each channel.

Kyte has setup a FAQ about the free service discontinuation.

I’ve always been against texting while driving, videotaping while driving or talking on your mobile device without a hands-free headset while driving. It makes me angry when I see videos on YouTube where a driver is holding a camera and videotaping themselves while driving (many times at high speeds on the highway). As Judge Judy says, it’s one thing if you want to take your own life, but when you are reckless you put so many others in the path of potential harm. It’s too bad that local police agencies don’t go after those who post their videos on YouTube showing off their “oh so important” video they just had to create while driving.

If you think driving your car while filming a video is not appropriate, what about a city bus driver driving a bus down a busy street using his elbows while operating two cellular phones? The bus driver is operating the bus in Rome and appears to be talking on one cell phone while setting up email and other online accounts on the second phone.

Here’s hoping the bus operator was able to get out that important tweet, check-in to his bus, Like his bus, or tip his important update. Those things are certainly more important than passenger safety and the safety of those around the bus.

Here’s the video from the incident — I am unable to confirm whether the driver has only been suspended or whether he has been fired.
Continue reading “Italian Bus Driver Suspended After Driving Bus With Elbows While Hands on Two Cellphones (video)” »

A year ago I wrote about, how even though I moved, how thanks to technology I was able to remain home (that’s NYC). In the post, I noted that I was able to watch a month’s worth of Yankees games via MLB.tv thanks to a $5 Groupon offer. It was pretty awesome but keeping the service going after the deal was over was just too rich for me. Luckily a number of NY Yankees games have been broadcast locally on ESPN, Fox and TBS. These stations know which team is the best in baseball so they show the team as often as possible.

Today I’ve learned that the MLB has reduced the prices of their MLB.tv plans by $10. Naturally a month of the season is over so it makes sense to reduce the price. The basic MLB.tv plan is $89 and the premium plan is $109. The premium plan includes audio from both home and away teams, dvr controls and multi-game view so you can watch up to 4 games at once.

MLB.tv is now also offering a mobile device plan for $49 for the balance of the season. The plan is good for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and some Android devices. The mobile only plan is limited but does allow you to listen to both home and away audio (this is actually a pretty cool feature).

It’s important to remember that if you order MLB.tv, you can only watch out-of-market games. Blackouts are determined by IP address on both the desktop and mobile versions.

It’s also important to note that if you are a Red Sox or Mets fan, your pricing is double the listed rates. This is due to a special “we wish we were as good as the Yankees” tax on those specific teams.

Last week I was the first to report that Google Video would be removing the ability to watch hosted videos and would delete the videos effective May 13, 2011. I also created a how-to guide to help you download your Google Video hosted videos in the event that the download button wasn’t visible in your account.

Shortly after my post, Francine Hardaway posted on Twitter that she wondered why Google Video didn’t just create a simple Google Video-to-YouTube converter. Many others posted similar comments (some using expletives) both on Twitter and on CN.

Today Google announced they have created an easy way to move your Google Video hosted videos to YouTube.  The Google post notes, “we will be working to automatically migrate your Google Videos to YouTube.” You can also go ahead and migrate your videos to YouTube now. To do so, you need to make sure your YouTube and Google accounts are connected and then it’s as simple as clicking the “Upload videos to YouTube” option.

The best part about the migration tool is that Google is working to make sure your links won’t break and will be forwarded to YouTube. I am not sure if that includes embedded videos or just links to hosted videos.

It’s great to see that Google has listened to user feedback and created a quick transfer option.

(title came from suggestion from Ed Tatton)

One of my colleagues in Switzerland just forwarded an email from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) which includes a very important update regarding the Google Video service.  Two years ago Google announced that they would discontinue support for uploads to Google Video. At that time Google noted, “Don’t worry, we’re not removing any content hosted on Google Video — this just means you will no longer be able to upload new content to the service.”

It appears that might be changing. The email below (in German) basically includes the following changes:

• As of April 29, 2011, you will no longer be able to view videos hosted on Google Video
• As of May 13, 2011, you will no longer be able to download videos hosted on Google Video
• Google suggests you re-upload your videos to YouTube

Update Friday 9pm: We can now confirm that these changes are worldwide. Early this morning we reported that the changes might be for the German Google Video but the email below (now in English) confirms that the changes are worldwide.
Continue reading “Updated: Google Video To Delete Uploaded Videos on May 13” »

This afternoon I attended the Affiliate Summit meetup in Austin. The Affiliate Summit monthly events take place around the world so you can locate the one nearest to you. The event included lunch and a talk by Affiliate Summit founder Shawn Collins. Unfortunately I got lost locating the pizza joint so I missed the lunch bit (of course as a real NY’er, I would never eat “Chicago” stuffed pizza, especially outside of Chicago).

I’ve embedded Shawn’s presentation below — the slides are somewhat hard to read in the video so download the slides here.

Shawn covers the following topics:

• Finding topics you care about
• How and where to find the best affiliate programs for your topic or niche
• Domain names and hosting
• The importance of patience

Lastly Shawn explained that instead of writing a book directly, he setup ExtraMoneyAnswer to create his book by blogging about how to make money online.
Continue reading “Shawn Collins on Affiliate Marketing for Newbies (video)” »