Mobility Digest » YouTube

And Here’s a Cat Playing Fruit Ninja on an iPad

David K — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:42:19 +0000

Quiet week between the holidays so let’s watch a cat go to town on an iPad and do some pretty decent slicing. Hope he’s got a screen protector…

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When the video ends you can see the related videos and notice that this cat Fruit Ninja thing is out there. In other words, first one to set up the tournament and get it on Pay Per View gets all the gold.

Smooth YouTube Downloader Updated (version 2.1)(8/31)

Albert Bunn — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:17:53 +0000

On August 31st, popular XDA DEVELOPERS member Zorc released version 2.1 of one of the community’s favorite Windows Mobile freeware tools, Smooth YouTube downloader. Since its inception, Smooth YouTube Downloader has helped the prolific community of Windows Mobile device holders around the world to download YouTube videos to their device’s more reliable onboard storage or media card without having to worry about data speeds, network coverage, or WEP keys. While ironically many companies are trying to move our “personal belongings” to overloaded “cloud servers” in the sky that require constant and reliable network access, having your files with you reduces the wait and saves precious battery life, not to mention the bandwidth that would’ve been otherwise wasted (which isn’t a good thing in this day and age with so many carriers charging massive costs for extremely small amounts of data). Smooth YouTube downloader comes with a nifty skin and allows you to pick the desired resolution for your download from QVGA size FLV files to WXGA size MP4s and everything inbetween. The program itself supports many common device resolutions too from QVGA to WVGA so that more Windows Mobile enthusiasts can enjoy the software, thanks to Zorc.

::AB

RealTube – Revamped and Set Free

David K — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:16:49 +0000

RealTube isn’t just another YouTube player for Windows Phones. It’s actually a flash video player and because of that you can watch content from CNN, DailyMotion, Funny Or Die and MSN Video as well as YouTube. And on top of that you get to watch the original 480p resolution which matches Windows Phones’ resolution. All of the other YouTube clients for Windows Phones have to play the mp4 which is typically a 360p video that they need to upscale or a 720p video that has to be scaled down. Either mp4 option leaves you with either poor video quality or wasted bandwidth, CPU/GPU and battery. That’s not the case with RealTube so you have more content available and at the right resolution.

The latest version of RealTube comes with the following features:

Search and browse using Bing Video Search
Supports multiple web video sites:
YouTube, CNN, DailyMotion, Funny Or Die and MSN Video
Best quality Windows Phone video app: 480p ‘native’ resolution playback
Download unlimited videos (based on available storage)
Save videos as favourites
Share videos via Twitter, SMS or Email
Plays FLV, MP4 and WMV format videos
Turn on and off individual site search in settings
Choice of paid and ad-supported versions available
Adult content filter & Zune history disable option

And there’s now two versions of it. The paid version is just $1 and has a 15 day trial. The new free version is ad supported but you can register to remove ads. Here’s the link to that version. This is actually an app I use on a regular basis and the updates only keep me going back to it.

EZ Tube–YouTube Downloader and Manager (for free)

David K — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:11:05 +0000

A new YouTube app just hit the Marketplace and it boasts some pretty fancy features:

ezTube is a comprehensive and easy-to-use youtube client. With ezTube you can conveniently enjoy almost all youtube’s features including:
1. Download videos to your phone, so that you can watch them later without the internet connection.
2. Speed up downloading by the multi-thread download accelerator.
3. Manage downloading queue: cancel, pause, resume
4. Resume corrupted downloads
5. Organize your downloaded videos in different playlists.
6. Play videos under the locked screen.
7. Automatically play the next video in your current list.
8. Quickly search for videos, browse youtube’s categories, most-viewed videos.
9. View video details: rating, comments, related videos, videos from the same author.
10. Login to your account to:
- Add/remove videos from/to your favourites.
- Add new playlists to your youtube account.
- Add/remove videos from/to your youtube playlists.
- Watch your uploaded videos.
- Follow your subscribed channels, or unsubscribe any channels.
- Rate a video: like, dislike
- Post comments
ezTube is completely free now! Go and get it!

Sounds like it’s pretty solid, especially for free. It’s called ezTube and is in the music and video category.

You know that crazy “Social Media” thing?

Doug Smith — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:41:46 +0000

You know that crazy “Social Media” Thing? Mobility Digest is on them! That’s right, Mobility Digest is on Twitter, Facebook, and don’t forget our RSS Feed. I have never really pushed our Social Media outlets but I am getting tired of listening to David chew me out over it. So why not show your support for Mobility Digest by heading on over to all three of these exciting ways to experience Mobility Digest’s content by either subscribing or “liking” us?

Simmons has some crazy direct link to our Google Analytics and he says that we have a pretty damn good reader base, so we want to see your support. Our other site run by Patrick Kortendick, Xbox360Digest has over 4000 Twitter followers! That’s crazy! I know you guys won’t let them beat us out so SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

Are you on Facebook? Head on over and “like” our page: Mobility Digest Facebook

Are you a glutton for mobility news and don’t have time to come to our site, read about us on Twitter, or check out Facebook? Well then why not SUBSCIBE to our RSS Feed?

Okay, so that’s enough with my Social Media for one day. But I do have a few other things I needed to mention. I know we were once a niche WinMo website turned multi-platform blog. It wasn’t my choice, it just kinda happened that way. If you read our website daily, which is highly recommended of course, you would know that we still lean heavily towards Windows Phone. nothing wrong with that, but you know what, there is a lot of cool things happening in iOS and Android that a lot of folks want to read about. So we need more writers for the iPhone especially. I am tired of battling these guys and need your help! Look at the top of our website page for the link to get more info.

Lastly, and most importantly, compliment our writers! The best way to do this is drop a comment. Tell them thanks, or engage in a discussion with them about their article. These guys do this for free and all have day jobs. They take time away from family and friends to be part of the community and share their passion with us. They deserve a little appreciation and I would like to start by thanking them myself. You guys rock! So until a fabulously wealthy patron makes us a sizeable donation to spread around between us, please pat them on the back once in a while.

Thanks to all of you readers, commenters, and ass kickers who keep us going each day.

Doug Smith

PS: We’re on YouTube too: Mobility Digest YouTube

Thank you Simmons:

MS Files Antitrust Complaint Against Goog–Explains Why WP7 YouTube App Sucks

David K — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:42:55 +0000

Microsoft’s general counsel has announced that Microsoft is filing a formal complaint with the European Commission as part of an anti-competitive claim. I’ll provide the entirety of the post below because it’s actually a very interesting read, but start with the irony in all of this, which is that the same action against Microsoft is what led to Microsoft changing its practices dramatically and losing a huge amount of market share in a host categories. But, to our mobile readers, there’s a direct claim that Google is intentionally crippling YouTube access to Windows Phones as part an an anti-competitive practice. Here are his words:

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.

Wow not only are those some big allegations but describing the YouTube app on your platform in those terms is a pretty big admission. At least now we know why it sucks so bad. In fact it has 2.5 stars despite being the top downloaded app.

Anyway, get out your popcorn because this is just the beginning. And yes, I’ll be the first to make the jump and say that Google is crippling YouTube on WP7 because it does think that WP7 is a real competitor that it needs to contend with even at this early stage.

Here’s the post in full for your reader pleasure. Sound off in the comments:

Microsoft is filing a formal complaint with the European Commission as part of the Commission’s ongoing investigation into whether Google has violated European competition law. We thought it important to be transparent and provide some information on what we’re doing and why.

At the outset, we should be among the first to compliment Google for its genuine innovations, of which there have been many over the past decade. As the only viable search competitor to Google in the U.S. and much of Europe, we respect their engineering prowess and competitive drive. Google has done much to advance its laudable mission to “organize the world’s information,” but we’re concerned by a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative.

We’ve therefore decided to join a large and growing number of companies registering their concerns about the European search market. By the European Commission’s own reckoning, Google has about 95 percent of the search market in Europe. This contrasts with the United States, where Microsoft serves about a quarter of Americans’ search needs either directly through Bing or through our partnership with Yahoo!.

At Microsoft we’ve shown that we’re prepared to work hard and invest literally billions of dollars annually to offer Bing, a search service that many now regard as the most innovative available. But, hard work and innovation need a fair and competitive marketplace in which to thrive, and twice the Department of Justice has intervened to thwart Google’s unlawful conduct from impeding fair competition. In 2008 the DOJ moved to file suit against Google for its unlawful attempt to tie up and set search advertising prices at Yahoo!, causing Google to back down. And last year the DOJ formally objected to Google’s efforts to monopolize book content, a position affirmed by a federal district court in New York just last week. Unfortunately, even this has not stopped the spread by Google of new and disconcerting practices in the United States.

As troubling as the situation is in United States, it is worse in Europe. That is why our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers.

How does it do this? Google has built its business on indexing and displaying snippets of other organizations’ Web content. It understands as well as anyone that search engines depend upon the openness of the Web in order to function properly, and it’s quick to complain when others undermine this. Unfortunately, Google has engaged in a broadening pattern of walling off access to content and data that competitors need to provide search results to consumers and to attract advertisers.

On PCs it is usually not difficult for people to navigate to any search engine. Google in fact makes this point virtually every time someone raises antitrust concerns about their practices. Their defense ignores the hugely important fact that there are many other important ways that search services compete. Search engines compete to index the Web as fully as possible so they can generate good search results, they compete to gain advertisers (the source of revenue in this business), and they compete to gain distribution of their search boxes through Web sites. Consumers will not benefit from clicking to alternative sites unless all search engines have a fair opportunity to compete in each of these areas.

Our filing details many instances where Google is impeding competition in these areas. A half-dozen examples below help illustrate some of our concerns.

First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube—and since then it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google.

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.

Third, Google is seeking to block access to content owned by book publishers. This was underscored in federal court in New York last week, in the decision involving Google’s effort to obtain exclusive and unfettered access to the large volume of so-called “orphan books”—books for which no copyright holder can readily be found. Under Google’s plan only its search engine would be able to return search results from these books. As the federal court said in rejecting this plan, “Google’s ability to deny competitors the ability to search orphan books would further entrench Google’s market power in the online search market.” This is an important initial step under U.S. law, but it needs to be reinforced by similar positions in Europe and the rest of the world.

Fourth, Google is even restricting its customers’—namely, advertisers’—access to their own data. Advertisers input large amounts of data into Google’s ad servers in the course of managing their advertising campaigns. This data belongs to the advertisers: it reflects their decisions about their own business. But Google contractually prohibits advertisers from using their data in an interoperable way with other search advertising platforms, such as Microsoft’s adCenter.

This makes it much more costly for Google’s advertisers to run portions of their campaigns with any competitor, and thus less likely that they will do so. That is a significant problem because most advertisers figure that they have to advertise first with Google. If it’s too expensive to port their advertising campaign data to competing advertising platforms, many won’t do it. Competing search engines are left with less relevant ads, and less revenue. And while this restraint isn’t visible to consumers, its effects are nonetheless felt across the Web. Advertising revenue is the economic propellant fueling the billions of dollars needed for ongoing search investments. By reducing competitors’ ability to attract advertising revenue, this restriction strikes at the heart of a competitive market.

Fifth, this undermining of competition is reflected in concerns that go beyond Google’s control over content. One of the ways that search engines attract users is through distribution of search boxes through Web sites. Unfortunately, Google contractually blocks leading Web sites in Europe from distributing competing search boxes. It is obviously difficult for competing search engines to gain users when nearly every search box is powered by Google. Google’s exclusivity terms have even blocked Microsoft from distributing its Windows Live services, such as email and online document storage, through European telecommunications companies because these services are monetized through Bing search boxes.

Finally, we share the concerns expressed by many others that Google discriminates against would-be competitors by making it more costly for them to attain prominent placement for their advertisements. Microsoft has provided the Commission with a considerable body of expert analysis concerning how search engine algorithms work and the competitive significance of promoting or demoting various advertisements.

Over the past year, a growing number of advertisers, publishers, and consumers have expressed to us their concerns about the search market in Europe. They’ve urged us to share our knowledge of the search market with competition officials. As they’ve pointed out, the stakes are high for the European economy. On any given day, more than half of all Europeans use the Internet, and more than 90 percent of them look for information about goods and services on the Web. Indeed, the European Commission’s Digital Agenda made clear that commerce is moving online, where two-thirds of Europeans begin their shopping process. It’s therefore critical that search engines and online advertising move forward in an open, fair and competitive manner.

There of course will be some who will point out the irony in today’s filing. Having spent more than a decade wearing the shoe on the other foot with the European Commission, the filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly. This is the first time Microsoft Corporation has ever taken this step. More so than most, we recognize the importance of ensuring that competition laws remain balanced and that technology innovation moves forward.

We readily appreciate that Google should continue to have the freedom to innovate. But it shouldn’t be permitted to pursue practices that restrict others from innovating and offering competitive alternatives. That’s what it’s doing now. And that’s what we hope European officials will assess and ultimately decide to stop.

That Little Girlie She’s a Thousandaire!

Doug Simmons — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:18:53 +0000

I was flipping around Youtube (new habit of mine) and came across something so damn funny I don’t even want to tell you how many times I watched it. A parody of some feel-good kid music video, Friday by Rebecca Black. The parody’s got four million views on it and counting. Using Youtube’s powerful Related videos function I figured I should watch the subject of the parody in case it made the parody funnier when watching the parody more afterward, which it did.

I understand you’re busy and will only click on one or the other so go with the parody:

So four million views on a parody (plus one thanks to you) of something with about fifty million views, the video looks pretty produced, very family and TV-friendly; not knowing anything more than that you’d think this Rebecca kid is making bank. Right? Well Mashable ran the numbers and she’s not. Hell the parody guy may be doing a better job of monetizing this video and the newly-found celebrity of hers than Rebecca Black is actually doing.

Youtube pulls in about a dollar per thousand views of something, then Rebecca and her people (who may still owe other people money), not just Rebecca, get a 68% cut of that dollar. That’s not even forty grand. Friday’s no Thriller but judging by the video I don’t think she’s even breaking even, even with the iTunes money, seventy cents a track adding up to a whopping $26K for the first week, plus a little scratch for some ringtones.

No wonder she’s just giving it all to the Japanese. Maybe they can use it for the postage to send her back a thank you haiku written on top of a softly painted background of some bridge they repaired in two hours.

I guess the point I’m trying to make with this piece is that Youtube may have generated this cutie pie artist more money selling ads than Apple did selling tracks. Think on that. And by the way, who the hell is paying $1.29 for a dumb ringtone? Stop that.

Doug Simmons

SuperTube – YouTube Player and Downloader For WP7

David K — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:25:09 +0000

A new app hit the marketplace called SuperTube and it has a unique feature. You can download YouTube videos locally. The reason it’s unique is because there’s no access for devs to the Video directory of Windows Phones. So how did they get around it? Well as far as I can tell they’ve localized it to the app so it’s in isolated storage. That means you can open the video only by going through the app and not by going to your Videos directory. It’s not fatal, since that’s more in line with other operating systems where you open specific apps for specific tasks, but of course I wish MS would just grant access to the directory. Anyway, here’s the description:

SuperTube is a powerful YouTube app for Windows Phone 7.
With Super Tube, you can:
1. Browse High Definition (720P, 360P) and standard videos from YouTube
2. Download all videos of the YouTube to phone’s local disk, and supports resume broken downloads
3. Search all videos by relevance, published date, view count, and rating
4. Support Multi-Language (English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese) and Multi-region function
All users of trial and full version can browse the High Definition and standard videos for free.
Trial version contains advertisement, and limits users to download 3 videos successfully. Full version removes all advertisements, and allows users to download all videos without limit.

It’s $1.29 with a free trial and is under Music & Video. I gave it a quick go and it’s pretty nice. I found the video I was looking for, downloaded and it and it playing locally. No more buffering.

YouTube 2.1 App Now Available on Android Market

David K — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:14:10 +0000

If you have an Android 2.2 device go to the Android Market and get your update on. Yes, you can update this without updating the OS.

The app was rebuilt from the ground up to mirror the YouTube desktop experience and is our fastest, most intuitive YouTube mobile app to date.

What’s new:

In-page playback: you can read the video description, browse related, rate or flag videos without having to interrupt video playback.

Posting comments: you can post a comment while the video is playing, just like on the desktop website.

Subscription updates: we’ve made it easier to access new videos from your subscriptions. If you are signed into your account, you will see all your subscription updates right on the home screen of the app.

New full-screen UI: To enter full-screen mode simply rotate the phone. The new player controls make it easier to seek within the video, and you can pause or resume the playback by just tapping on the screen.

Following our famous mantra ‘launch early, iterate often’, we first released an early version of the unbundled app a few of weeks ago, collected user feedback, and addressed the key user requests in version 2.1.

Here she is in action:

Google Proudly Acquires Video Delivery Company

Doug Simmons — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:05:30 +0000

Apparently to get deeper into the content providing game, something that wouldn’t hurt the Google TV project, Google just bought Widevine. Like me you probably hadn’t heard of it, but judging soley from Google’s announcement and Widevine’s website, I like where they’re going with this:

So we’re pleased to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Widevine. The Widevine team has worked to provide a better video delivery experience for businesses of all kinds: from the studios that create your favorite shows and movies, to the cable systems and channels that broadcast them online and on TV, to the hardware manufacturers that let you watch that content on a variety of devices. By forging partnerships across the entire ecosystem, Widevine has made on demand services more efficient and secure for media companies, and ultimately more available and convenient for users.

Can’t find much on this company, no Wikipedia page, heck they don’t even have a favicon.ico, but Widevine’s main product is “a multiplatform, multiformat DRM and video optimization solution that content owners, internet video providers, retailers and video operators can use to deliver a branded, high quality entertainment offering to internet-connected entertainment platforms.” Personally I could live without DRM, especially on my phone, but what good is a platform if it doesn’t support Netflix, right?

Sounds to me like this acquisition could have been precipitated by all those networks blocking Google TV with Google thinking, Well, we could either bend over and let them extort us or we could just go company shopping again. This Widevine outfit is no joke and has alliances and clients of all sorts including AT&T, Best Buy, Blockbuster, DISH, Netflix, Samsung, Toshiba and quite a few more.

I’ve noticed with Google a pattern of buying companies with excitement surrounding the acquisitions and months or years pass without anything materializing from it so I hope they go full throttle with this one. Fun fact: Did you know that thirty five hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute? That’s crazy!

Doug Simmons