BMB Geek Club

Digital fingerprints and the future of YouTube

A potentially ingenious way around the usage and copyright problem from Chad Hurley, inventor of YouTube:

All files have a digital pingerprint which enables originators, to identify their content when it appears on YouTube. So Sony will know about it when someone uses one of their tracks as a soundtrack to a YouTube video and 20th Century Fox will know when someone uses a bit of one of their films.

Rather than have the content removed, the originator will receive a percentage of the advertising revenue generated by views of that video. The more interesting part though is that the person who has uploaded the video with the content they didn't have permission to use will also receive a percentage of the revenue.

It's early days yet and there are obvious huge pitfalls but possibly a brilliant solution to the lurking copyright problems that YouTube faces and also, bizarrely, a way for virals to generate huge amounts of money.

Wrighty

OnTheMoveTube

It was only a matter of time, but a deal has finally been struck which enables avid YouTube users to keep the site close at hand. US telecommunications company Verizon Wireless has negotiated an agreement with YouTube to allow its customers to watch YouTube videos on their mobile phone.

It all sounds fantastic, until you take a look at the facts and figures.

The service will cost users an additional $15 a month. For this $15, you get access to a service hosted by Verizon's Multimedia Hub, V-cast, which contains clips "selected and approved by the companies...that [have] the broadest appeal and highest entertainment value." So no doubt users will have access to some ads, the odd movie clip (provided V-cast can strike some sort of deal), and a few trailers for American sit-coms, thrown in for good measure.

And, just in case consumers hadn't been put off enough, the service will also only be available for a 'limited' period of time...

Enough cynicism. This is the first major distribution deal for YouTube since Google acquired the website in early October of this year, and YouTube has announced plans to "roll out more exciting partnerships and features for the mobile user over the coming year".

In terms of potential uses for our clients, we will be able to distribute their user-generated content to an increasingly widespread and mobile audience.

Who knows?......We might even make it past the V-cast censors :)

Sonia

meta-viral

watching the downloaders

effects of youtube on television viewing
Over on i-boy, there is an interesting overview on the effects of Youtube on tv viewing.  CBS says all the content they have given away on youtube has reaped dividends.  The BBC says roughly the direct opposite.  George Nimeh tries to make sense of the discrepancy.

old tube

research on You Tube viewership   

I thought that my youtube habit was indicative of my desperate  late middle youth tosspoterdom. But recent research from the states suggests that the over 35 audience for You tube  represent about 50% of total visitors.   So I am not alone.  Perhaps this accounts for all the seventies and eighties ads, sketches and cartoons that populate its murky depths.

advertising mash up. apple visuals, jaguar v.o.