The editor at our cross-Pacific sibling, Lifehacker Australia, picks up a tip from Cisco’s conferencing and video chat veterans: Once you’ve positioned your web cam or video link correctly, drop the window that shows your own mug. You’ll maintain better eye contact, focus on the conversation, and generally seem more involved. Can’t get by without some self-reflection? Tell us why in the comments.
(Via Lifehacker.)
Sometimes, you don’t have to think of new improvements and features for your web service; your users do it for you. Such is the case with YouTube, which – while purely a video sharing site – is being used for sharing all kinds of data by the users, simply because they find it synonymous with sharing.
What do I mean by ‘all kinds of data’? First, music. Ever seen a music video on YouTube that isn’t really a music video, but simply a song with some pictures slapped on it just to kill the boredom? There are plenty of services for sharing audio files out there, but kids are using YouTube because they’re used to it, because it’s simple, and because all their friends are using it. AP has an interesting article on this topic.
It doesn’t stop at music. You can find song lyrics (karaoke style) or even chords embedded in some videos; some users are sharing photos simply by stringing them into a video with music, etc. Video is definitely not the best vehicle for sharing all these types of data, but I see more and more users doing it; for them, it obviously works better than other available options.
Now, I’m not really sure if expanding focus to other types of data is the best course or even a good idea for YouTube. But I see untapped potential here; users are obviously already using these features – although they’re not quite there – so why not provide them? Of course, the folks at YouTube would have to be extra careful not to overly complicate the service and/or confuse their users. But if they pulled it off well, it might turn out to be a very smart move.
Please, feel free to voice your opinion in the comments: should YouTube add support for sharing other types of data, or should it stick to video only?
(Via Mashable!.)
75 Percent Of Americans Watching Online Video: ”
More people are watching video online than ever, with the percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewing online video now topping 75%.
What’s this mean to you?
In a few years, your television will be more like your computer than a traditional television.
comScoretoday released July 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, reporting that Americans viewed more than 11.4 billion videos for a total duration of 558 million hours during the month.
Other notable findings from July 2008 include:
- Americans spent a total of 558 million hours watching online video during the month.
- The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.
- 91 million viewers watched 5 billion videos on YouTube.com (54.8 videos per viewer).
- 51.4 million viewers watched 400 million videos on MySpace.com (7.8 videos per viewer).
- The duration of the average online video was 2.9 minutes.
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