There have been many news reports and blogs written about copyright infringement on YouTube.  A quick Google Search turns up several lawsuits against YouTube for this reason.  Some nations have banned all access to the website or else have restricted the content therein.

In this Internet Age, I believe that YouTube has done a commendable job protecting copyrights of individuals and corporations.  Frequently I have looked up a music video only to find the audio track is blocked.  Searching for video clips from the current Olympic Games brings up only a few clips, which end up being dead links themselves because the videos have been removed.

While our copyright laws are poorly structured for the Internet Age, YouTube has done more than just the minimum provided by law.  They have made concerted efforts to protect copyrighted material.  All it takes is for one user to click “report” and someone working for YouTube will watch the flagged video for potential violations.

Well done, YouTube.

In a world where almost any video posted online can be viewed from a single website, today’s population has once again ruined it. People have taken a usefull source of video, and turned it into another place to make complete and utter fools of themselves. Some may say that is a chance for a nobody to become famous, but is putting on a pair of headphones and jiggling your extra two or three chins to the sound of a techno song really worth the fame? Yes some of the videos posted are quite funny, but all at the expense of the ‘nobody’ that dreamed of being known. Well congrats people of Youtube, your dreams have come true. From this day forward we will recognize you as Mr. Numa Numa, or the Afro Ninja. We will forever know what David acts like, high out of his mind coming home from a trip to the dentist. Christmas will never seem so exciting after seeing how the N64 kid acts, upon recieving the present of his dreams. We will always feel like we have so much coordination after watching Scarlet take a tumble. All the while sitting on our beds singing along to Why must I Cry. Youtube has been a great source of video, but is it just me that thinks people have once again ruined it?

Tufts University has been encouraging students to submit online applications: on Youtube. Is this an internet fad that will not catch on, or a genius idea that is long overdue?

http://www.reelseo.com/university-encourages-applicants-submit-youtube-videos/

Of the 15,000 applications submitted to the college last year, 1000 of them were via Youtube. Colleges look for information on prospective students online, so you might as well give them what they want before they find it on their own.

Pen and paper applications are unlikely to become obsolete. However, a video gives an admissions rep a new layer information about a student that cannot easily be translated to a piece of paper.

Sex sells. Yeah…we all knew that. Do you know what else sells, especially on the Internet? Humor. (Ok, you probably knew that too, whatever.) Sometimes it’s even so funny and popular that it spawns not one but several spin-offs like the site that I’m about to introduce did. Now I sincerely hope that this post is not relevant to you, because that means you discovered and inevitably became a fan of this very popular site (or series of sites actually) long ago. If you haven’t, and this post IS relevant to you, then I apologize, because your life has been seriously lacking up until this point. BUT…that ends now. To the unacquainted few, allow me to introduce, FMyLife.

FML

Users post 2-3 sentence stories about “terrible” (and usually hilarious to all outsiders) things that happened to them that day. Other users can then vote on whether they agree that their life is indeed “F-ed” or that the person actually deserved what happened to them. For example:

“Today, I got a letter from Princeton that said i got accepted. I jumped for joy screaming at the top of my lungs. My little brother walks in laughing with his camcorder on record. He played a joke on me and gave me the real letter. I was denied. FML”

The site was so popular that there now exists (among others) MyLifeIsAverage, MyLifeIsAwesome, and MakeMeThink (the latter didn’t get the memo that these only work when they’re funny…). I remember FML back when they were still looking for people interested in advertising on their site. Suffice it to say, I’d kill to have been one of their early investors…

P.S. – This site is rated P-13. Fair warning.

Enjoy.

One thing is clear to me. The era of switching on the TV and flipping through the channels looking for something decent to watch is quickly coming to a close. This was first hinted at a couple years ago with the now shut down TV.com. Rather than being restricted to the some set number of television channels, you could search for almost any episode of almost any show and watch it whenever you felt like it. Unfortunately, the site did not last, but not for lack of a good idea. Today we have similar [legal] things like Hulu, not to mention network sites (Fox, CBS, etc) which also allow you to watch their shows on their relative sites.

Given the assumption that this is indeed the method of TV watching of the future, why does YouTube continue to restrict itself to mindless (albeit funny at times) videos uploaded by its users? I’m sure its advertisement space would become that much more valuable if it were to add content with actual “substance”, thereby attracting even more users than it already gets.

Do you agree that television sets are on their way out? If so, do you agree that YouTube should get it together, remove their self-imposed handicap, and show some real shows?