Written on 17th June 2009
11 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The first videos and photos claimed to be taken with an iPhone 3G S have been begun appearing on YouTube and Flickr.
You’ll need to take the media with a pinch of salt though because there’s no guarantee’s that either has actually been shot with the phone. The fact that the poster has the phone’s box on the table is a good sign though.
German blog iFun.de has posted a number of comparison shots between the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S, the difference is significant.
If you’ve had your attention span worn down by years of watching bite-size web videos then Veetweet might be just the service for you.
Consisting of a grid of mini-video players, it displays a Youtube video in each and plays ten seconds from each one in a random order. Once a clip has played it’s replaced by another, creating a never-ending web video showcase.
The videos are all sourced from Twitter posts that link to Youtube and each video’s corresponding tweet is displayed below it. It’s a hypnotic experience and great way to stumble upon videos you’d probably never have found otherwise… if it doesn’t drive you insane first.
Written on 8th May 2009
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
In an attempt to make the browser cool, Google have released a number of video shorts promoting Google Chrome in manner equivalent to Apple’s iPod ads (watch the first one, you’ll see what I mean).
11 of them are currently live on the Google Chrome Channel on YouTube, some of them are particularly good (shared below). I cannot wait for the Mac release, speed it up Google!
A few weeks ago Youkubuzz, a blog from one of the biggest Chinese video-sharing sites Youku.com that regularly posts funny/interesting items, tweeted:
It reminded me of some videos and news-items that have all experienced their 15 minutes of viral-fame in China. They are about home-made vehicles. Sounds boring? How about a gyro copter for 2, an ultra-light airplane with a rudder made of hemp-rope, or a one-person helicopter that maneuvers through the streets of GuangZhou? I think the vehicles in the videos are a metaphor for the Chinese way of doing things: people here have a very different mindset than in developed economies. Rather than safety-first it is all about pragmatism. As the videos show, despite the dusty-and dirtiness, the pragmatic and auto didactic approach definitely pays off . Here’s a small list:
A home-made helicopter (nearly slicing up the power cables):
Written on 9th March 2009
15 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
You read it right, from Monday at 6pm GMT, YouTube UK will block access to virtually every premium music video on the site after failing in negotiations with the Performing Right Society (PRS).
The PRS exists to ensure songwriters, composers and publishers are rewarded financially for the broadcasting of their music.
YouTube UK are saying that the fees PRS are charging are too expensive and would lead to the site losing money every time a video was played.
In a statement, Steve Porter of PRS said the move ”punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent”.
Patrick Walker of YouTube UK has stated
“It [the deal] has to be a rate than can drive a business model. We are in the business for the long run and we want to drive the use of online video…The rate they are applying would mean we would lose significant amounts of money on every stream of a music video. It is not a reasonable rate to ask.”
YouTube has also complained of a lack of transparency by the PRS, complaining (more…)
Last month at the DLD conference I had the opportunity to speak to Constantin Bjerke, founder of TheCrane.tv. TheCrane.tv is a new online video magazine all about contemporary culture that is set to launch in March and plans to feature high caliber content on the topics of Culture, Art & Design, Fashion, Lifestyle, Travel, Ideas and “Green”/Ecology around the globe.
TheCrane.tv hopes to raise the bar for superior video content on the Web with what they are referring to as ”Talent Generated Content.” Constantin describes Talent Generated Content by saying that all of the site’s content ”is produced by people that actually know what they’re doing, both in terms of quality of the film and in terms of the content.” Creatives from around the world are invited to share their films, videos and animations on any of the forementioned topics. TheCrane.tv is a unique magazine because it is completely video based. You don’t have to read articles but can simply “sit back and enjoy the ride” as Constantin puts it. (more…)
While typing this article, I’m listening to an intimate concert José Gonzalez gave in Berlin. It’s published on Sly-Fi, the music channel of Berlin-based Hobnox, that is temporarily functioning as the new MTV for me. Especially as they’ve interviewed the musician as well. Exactly the kind of experience marketing manager David Noel was hoping for: “MTV stopped producing music focused shows that also feature upcoming bands, we think that there is a gap to close.” So the team from Hobnox wants to satisfy all the music hipsters who are fed up with the musical atrocities of Rihanna and Enrique Iglesias.
Noel: “Right now, we produce editorial content for three channels in the broad areas music, film and culture”. The next step though, is more interesting. Hobnox will integrate content from talented users into existing shows or create new shows around them. “The existing formats are always made in a way that our users can easily make these shows themselves. Like the iNterview format. Just grab a laptop with a webcam and answer the questions your fans or friends send you.” (Here’s the latest episode with The Ting Tings)
The player does have some problems (in Firefox) though, as I can’t manage to get the embed code or a direct link. But if Noel and his team fix this, I think I can call Hobnox once again one the coolest start-ups of this year. These new plans make it even better. Seesmic has already proved that using your users’ content for shows can turn out to be really good move, as the funny g-spot episode showed. If Hobnox does the same, but with media talent, this German site could soon become one of my favorite channels.
A great way to spend this lazy Sunday afternoon is looking up Yamelo and be ready for a music trip down memory lane. This site has collected almost every hit from the sixties and beyond. Just click on a year or search for an artist. Remember your first kiss, school party, rock concert or that first vacation without your parents? All the songs you listened back then, are there.
Yamelo presents the songs as videos, ripped from YouTube. That basically makes it a music video search engine annex directory, with a great interface. Try to look up a song on this page and then compare it with Yamelo, you’ll know what I mean.
I hope the makers of Yamelo will put even more effort in developing the site, and filter out the videos of bad quality. Also, the service lets you relive your greatest memories but wouldn’t it be great if you could also share them? Yamelo would become a beautiful archive of not just music, but also the funny, touching, great and sad stories connected to the melodies.
SeeToo which was founded in 2007, has just recently moved to public beta. SeeToo is a web-based application that allows people to invite others to watch home videos with them in real time. You can also chat while watching. In this manner, SeeToo allows you to share videos with people you want to share them with and not with the whole world. The video isn’t saved to any server and won’t be available on the Internet afterwards. Users can share video files of any size and don’t need to upload files anywhere.
Basically the process works like this: You download the SeeToo application to your PC. This application takes any video on your desktop, compresses it, and streams it right from your computer to the SeeToo Web page that is hosting the chat. You select a video file from your computer. You invite a friend by sending an automatically generated invitation over your preferred IM service or by sending the link in an email. When the invitee clicks on the link, the viewing experience begins. The great part is that the invitee does not need to install anything in order to start watching the video. The downside is that unlike in Meebo Rooms, where you can watch embeddable videos with a bunch of people, SeeToo only allows you to watch a video with one person at a time.
Though SeeToo provides a useful service, it faces fierce competition from Meebo as mentioned earlier and PalTalk which enables real time shared video viewing with a lot more people as well. I’d advise SeeToo to enable shared viewing with a a group of people as soon as possible if they want to offer a real challenge to their competitors and gain a larger share of the market.
The application is currently only available for Windows. A Mac version is scheduled for release next year.
Written on 17th June 2009
11 COMMENTS 
Written on 30th May 2009
If you’ve had your attention span worn down by years of watching bite-size web videos then 
In an attempt to make the browser cool, Google have released a number of video shorts promoting Google Chrome in manner equivalent to Apple’s iPod ads (watch the first one, you’ll see what I mean).
Written on 20th April 2009
You read it right, from Monday at 6pm GMT, YouTube UK will block access to virtually every premium music video on the site after failing in negotiations with the 
Written on 2nd March 2009
Written on 28th June 2008
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
