Category: youtube

Blue Day, Melbourne

Blue Day means a clear day. I could see the sky. After leaving a dark and rainy Sydney, 4degC Melbourne was a rude surprise.

Up at 4:00am. A cat wandered out, stretched and looked at me quizzically seemingly asking : “WTF?”

Lovely Blue day in Melbourne

After checking the online world, my new residence, drive off to the airport. Megan’s battery is stuffed. Oh well, time to jump in the other MINI (Scarlett) and off.

Virgin Blue to Melbourne left only 10 minutes late due to Melbourne being fogged in. The in-flight magazine “Voyeur” has a one-page article on Social Networking. LOL. It’s mainstream now.

On the panel

There are two reasons for being in Melbourne: PR Summit run by Frocomm. I am a panelist along with Marilyn Chalkley, Manager, CSIRO Media Liaison and Andrew Parsons, Director, Production and Digital Communications, Department of Immigration and Citizenship. My title merely said “Professional Geek”

(for those watching my Twitter: here is the real Air guitar Youtube: Dr Richard Helmer’s Every wanna be rocker’s dream come true)

The session prior to the panel was by Abigail Thomas from the ABC. Abigail talked about ABC’s SecondLife island.

So, the panel was interesting. There is a big gap of experience and understanding of the “online native” world. Just podcasting a Press Release will not cut it for Podcasters and Bloggers. Creating a SecondLife island will cost, and attract 3 dogs and maybe a man (as much as I technically love SecondLife, we have yet to see the future)

My opinion on this in a forthcoming post.

Interestingly, the recent experience of Cameron Reilly, Twitterarti (including myself, I admit) and Telstra was mentioned in almost passing. Dr Hugh Bradlow from Telstra’s response is an excellent step into the conversation.

Had a break-chat with Gabriella Stern, Senior Editor from Dow Jones Newswires Singapore. Chat was about Journalism in this new online world we find ourselves. Enron, Stock Option Repricing and all sorts of discussion around blogging and journalists. After watching the PBS documentary, Newswar, it was enlightening. One part of our discussion related to the “mainstream media” and bloggers working together.

On the subject of the famous (The Bulletin famous) Cameron.

So, I have a few hours to kill. Twitter-friend Andrew Barnett was in the Melbourne CBD. After consulting a map of Melbourne streets, I navigated my way to Starbucks on the corner of Bourke and Queen street. Twitter’d to all that I was there, ready for anything.

Anything happened. Cameron Reilly popped in for a few moments. Later, Froosh and Andrew Barnett popped in for a chat on life, universe, weddings, parties and anything.

Upon returning to the impromptu Twitter meetup, Cameron derided me for my choice of corporate-coffee and insisted we move to Nick’s on Little Bourke Street. Let me say, it’s my new Melbourne food joint of choice. We are joined by new Twitter-friend, Garth.

So, off we trot to Nick’s.

Cameron Reilly

Cameron interviews us all on Twitter: questions related to how it has changed our blogging; general Twitter stories and if corporations should “adopt” Twitter.

@Froosh, @garthk, @andrewnbarnett

My opinion on this in a forthcoming post. Same post as above as the topic inter-connects.

Transport in Melbourne 2007

Taxi, Jetstar, Sydney, Home. Cat looks at me completely refreshed. I write this blog with the cat asleep. Oh for the cat’s life.

Melbourne was beautifally blue today. Cat missed that.

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

The New Nickel-Tube: Google and YouTube

So Google purchased YouTube. US$1.65B in shares, paper-work money or an entry in an SEC filing.

In cold-hard numbers: YouTube has a reported 100 million viewers per day; based on the purchase price, each view equates to US$0.0452 over a year. Or, another way to look at it: as long as Google “earns” US5c for each pair of eyeballs for a few minutes, within a year it is financially ahead.

Considering the current cost of both text-advertising and TV advertising; and the oncoming onslaught from competitors such as Microsoft and Yahoo!, US5c per view seems rather attractive.

Opportunity cost of not owning YouTube: a competitor would have purchased it, first. Fox had already purchased the young Myspace eyeballs; and Microsoft is serious about the online world and has all those XBoxen, Vistas, Zunes to capture other eyeballs. YouTube was obviously on the block for sale, and each viewer is valued at US$0.0452. US$1.65B is not too much compared to a competitor getting the brand. YouTube maybe the “text breakout” and single product weakness that dogged Google in recent months. (Robert Scoble has a perspective on this, too)

Looking into my crystal tube: Google’s Video Future: It is all about about the advertising. Potential changes to Google Adsense:

  • Text links inside an ad (transparent text on bottom); through to top+tail video or sound bytes
  • Throw more smart maths at technology to recognise the content inside video and then attach appropriate a like advertisement
  • The original publisher of youtubes (another verb coming on, here?) self-categorises, so advertisements could similarly be targeted.
  • For youtubes posted on blogs or other non-Google web sites; understanding the context would permit smarter targeted Adsense ads

Instead of crawling the internet, Google is becoming the internet. This is rather a scarily thought that crossed my mind when reading this Wired article (The Information Factories) on their new data center in Washington state, US. Ultimately, it may have been cheaper to buy YouTube than create a backing-store to hold indexed video and sound.

So next: watch Apple and Google. Not sale or purchase, just closer ties. Apple needs the content, Google needs the hardware. Microsoft is the common competitor.