A Look at Joost
March 9, 2007 | 51 Comments
Jenny recently hooked me up with a much coveted Joost account. Sadly I do not have any invitations yet, and there is a long list of people who have already asked me for one, you know who you are…
I was initially frustrated by the lack of client for MacOS-PPC, since this is the machine running in my living room, hooked to my TV. With that aside, I downloaded the client onto my Windows Vista laptop, where it initially also would not run. Luckily, with Vista all you need to do is jump through a few hoops. Here’s what you do:
- Right click on the shortcut, select properties.
- On the compatibility tab, un-check everything, except “Run as administrator”, this must be checked.
- Then click “Show settings for all users”, and do the same here.
- At this point you should be set to run Joost!
After the initial frustration of getting it running somewhere, I started to appreciate the potential here. In general, it runs pretty smoothly, the quality is surprisingly good for on demand web video. I think it is head and shoulders above the quality of YouTube or Google Video, probably comparable to VHS.
At the moment, the content is a bit limited, although I did watch the Green Day: American Idiot concert, which was very cool. I was extremely happy with the interface. I believe the channel based delivery of content will be familiar and intuitive to the general public who is familiar with cable TV.
My one final complaint would be the advertisement placement. It seems like the software just randomly decides to insert commercials from time to time, which I am OK with, but it doesn’t have any intelligence for deciding when to cut in. For example, I say a stupid Maybelline ad twice, both time in the middle of a song. I think this will work out in time, but just an insiders view of what’s wrong in the beta from my perspective…
Tags: american idiot, google, google video, green day, joost, macosx, Maybelline, television, video, web, windows vista, youtube
Best Super Bowl XLI Ads
February 5, 2007 | 2 Comments
As always the Super Bowl ads are an equal draw for viewers. I’m torn because I truly love both the game and the ads, which makes a DVR a necessity for bathroom breaks…
Anyway, here are my favorite commercials from this year, basically these are my top five sponsors, multiple ads for each in some cases, followed by two ads that get special mention.
Bud Light - Rock/Paper/Scissors
Bud Light - Fist Bump
CareerBuilder - Jungle Office Warfare Series Unfortunately these are not embed-able. Damn CareerBuilder!
Darts & Jungle, Inc
Promotion Pit
Performance Evaluation
Siera Mist - Beard Combover
Doritos - Live the Flavor
Coke - Video Game (GTA)
Special Mention for Most Disturbing: Chevy HHR Car Wash 2007 Super Bowl Spot
Special Mention for Saddest: GM robot suicide dream
Tags: ads, advertisement, advertisements, beard combover, bud, bud light, budweiser, builder, career, careerbuilder, cheesy, chevy, coke, combover, crunchy, doritos, fist bump, GM, gta, hhr, jungle, office, paper, robot, rock, sad, scissors, sierra mist, smooth, spicy, suicide, video game, warfare, youtube
Greatest Press Conference in the History of Media
February 2, 2007 | 1 Comment
The insanely ridiculous terror scare in Boston on Wednesday lead to the greatest press conference that has ever occurred. Watch above, you can’t help but love it!
Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens walk out of the Charlestown District Court and turn the media into a laughable circus, a feat they usually only accomplish on their own. The only topic open for discussion would be “haircuts in the 70’s”. The press conference goes on for a good amount of time with them refusing to consider any other topic and their lawyer repeatedly supporting this position. Eventually the media gives up and leaves them alone.
They were arrested for putting up throwies around Boston that depicted an advertisement for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” on Cartoon Network’s late night Adult Swim. Considering the fact that they were hired to do this work and their only intention was marketing and not terror, legally they should be fine. Luckily the judge handling the case seems like a reasonable person. “Judge Paul K. Leary seemed skeptical of the state’s case, telling Grossman that the law requires that people must intend to create a panic to be charged with placing hoax devices. This case, the judge said, seemed to involve two men who relatives say were paid to place unorthodox advertisements throughout the city.” [from the MAKE article]
Clearly the devices they used were innocuous and reasonably common (at least in principle) amongst netizens. I first learned about throwies a year ago in this Amanda Congdon Rocketboom video. Boston was the only city, out of the many that saw the same marketing campaign, that overreacted in this way.
Some of my favorite quotes I’ve heard related to this incident:
- “Boston police protect me from marketing!”
- “Couldn’t these have really been bombs?” response: “So could trash cans, mailboxes, and tubes of toothpaste…”
- “The press accuses of them of not taking it seriously but, in a sense, they’re taking it just as seriously as they ought to.”
- “omg exploding light brights”
In the end, what I find most disturbing is that this was a win for terrorism, even though no terrorists showed up to play…
Thanks to Cliff for finding the embed friendly YouTube video
Tags: adult swim, amanda congdon, aqua teen hunger force, boston, cartoon network, MAKE, marketing, Peter Berdovsky, rocketboom, Sean Stevens, terrorism, throwies, youtube
Google Acquiring YouTube
October 9, 2006 | 3 Comments
Google is in the process of acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion.
According to the press release:
The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.
[...]
When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world’s most popular services for video entertainment.
Since YouTube will be “strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business”, does this mean Google Video will remain intact with YouTube remaining in parallel? This would seem odd considering YouTube and Google Video are direct competitors. It only seems like good business sense to merge the two in some way.
The main positive to come out of this deal is that YouTube is not going away anytime soon. Knowing they had financial troubles and were rumored to be burning through venture capital money very quickly, most predictions suggested YouTube would implode if it did not find a sustainable business model. Google is the king of making these things work. Their vast user base, ad network, and searching capabilities should combine nicely with YouTube. Add to this their past history of succeeding with things people thought to large to sustain (see 2GB quotas in GMail), you have the perfect match here.
Tags: google, google video, network, search, video, youtube
Ask a Ninja: Pirates of the Carribean 2 Review
July 21, 2006 | 3 Comments
I have thought Ask A Ninja was brilliant since the first time I watched it. Basically this is a funny podcast where a ninja answers questions and spouts about this and that. The camera changes angles rapidly and the often circular and self-referencing dialog is side-splitting funny at times. Without a doubt this is one of the best video podcasts currently available
Switching topics, Pirates of the Carribean:Dead Man’s Chest was sadly not very good. The first movie was outstanding, but this one suffers from a lot of ailments, including being primarily just a lead in to the third movie. After I saw it I had thought about trying to write a review myself, but after seeing the following video from Ask A Ninja, I didn’t need to.
The ninja rightfully attacks the movie for a series of things including too many plot lines, everyone being pirates, loss of “the pirates code”, etc. This is a harsh and extremely accurate review. So far everyone who has seen this video has loved it, so hit play and get free entertainment here to make up for what was lost in seeing Pirates.
Tags: ask a ninja, movie, movie review, ninja, pirate, pirates, pirates of the carribean, pirates of the carribean dead man's chest, plot, plot lines, review, video podcast, youtube