Results tagged “google” from jsstudios.com

I've often wondered if this specific case would ever eventually come up. Consider, for a moment, that you are a user at some kind of social content website like YouTube, Flickr or some other. You faithfully upload content that you produce. Somehow or another, the website figures out a way to make money.

Shouldn't you share in that success? Somehow? Someway?

One of the users at YouTube, who applied to YouTube's partner program but was denied, is not exceptionally happy about the outcome. Apparently he has some videos on YouTube and they get pretty good traffic. Ever since YouTube decided to share some of the ad revenue with popular, traffic-generating users, it is possible that people can start getting something back for being a contributing member - if you're selected to be one of the "partners."

Since he was denied a partnership, he is suing Google ( since they purchased YouTube ) and believes he is entitled to some sort of compensation.

I see two sides to this:

First off, social sites like YouTube and Flickr ( to name just a couple ), I believe should give something back. Google paid 1.5 BILLION dollars. They didn't just buy the software and hardware, they bought YouTube for it's popularity. The members of the site ( through their contributions of content ) made the site as popular as it is. Of course, figuring out exactly how the members should be compensated is yet another matter even though using traffic to particular viewings of a specific video is a good place to start.

On the other hand: The people that built YouTube had the foresight and the know-how to build the software, make it scale and promote it in order for it to be as successful as it is. It isn't as if there are no other options to upload and view video on the web.

Either way, it should be an interesting case that ultimately could change the social content sites that we know now.

I'm trying out a new feed reader this week. I wholeheartedly intend to try it all week long, too. I've grown accustomed to using Google Reader for following the blogs, news, and any other feeds I find. However, lately Google Reader's just not doing it for me. I tried the new and improved version of Bloglines, but still was left wanting a bit.

Not long ago, Feed Demon ( a product from NewsGator ) was released as a free download. I kind of spaced it off, but decided to try it out yesterday.

This is a screenshot of Feed Demon in the wild. As you can see, it lists your available feeds to the left in a collapsible pane with the text from the feed in the larger window on the right. A pretty common layout for most feed readers.

Feed Demon allows you to start out with a bunch of popular feeds from various categories like news, entertainment, gaming, technology and gossip. I went ahead and let it subscribe me to all the feeds it recommended as I can always get rid of them later.

You can also add feeds that you subscribe to by importing an OPML file. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work using the OPML file that Google Reader allowed me to create. So I ended up importing all the subscribed feeds from the Bloglines account since I had used it when I started using Google Reader. That worked just fine.

Certainly, there are times when you want to use a web-based feed reader and times when a desktop reader is more appropriate. The nice thing about Feed Demon is that you can synchronize your desktop Feed Demon with an online account - NewsGator Online. The interface is very much like the desktop version of Feed Demon - although the desktop is packed with many more features. Regardless, either version will be aware of where you left off.

One week without using Google Reader. Is it possible? I'll let you know.

Now this is a pretty cool mash up. A Flight Simulator blended in with Google Maps. It's called Goggles. Fly your plane over the city. It'll bank to the left and right. It'll dive and climb.

Google is now offering a calendar web service. Although I've only logged in briefly to look around a bit, it appears to be a decent offering. Not too difficult to use and plenty of functionality.

This is cool. Google Maps has incorporated satellite imagery. Using the "Map" view you can find the address you are looking for and then switch over to "Satellite" view. I found the house where I used to live. Where I live now, the satellite didn't have the detail I was looking for. But for more populated areas like San Francisco you can zoom in as far as the software will let you. Now you can't zoom in to see people on the street or stuff like that. But, if you are looking for a particular building ( and the images allow you to zoom in close enough ) you will probably be able to find it. Have fun with it.