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  • JadoJodo 6:25 pm on October 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: alice, internet, jinx, life, twitter   

    …And That’s The Way It *Was* 

    Since the advent of the internet (See: Al Gore), the way things are done has constantly been changing. For example, it used to be that if you wanted to “play war”, you and your 10-year old friends would pick up sticks and have epic battles in your front yard. Now, you simply pick up your Xbox 360 controller and use the joysticks to “play war” for the next 4-hours against Jim in Tennessee and Jason in Canada.

    It used to be that if you wanted to watch a movie, you would get your kids in the car, drive down to Blockbuster, and spend the next 30-minutes deciding what movie you all agreed on. Now, you simply sit down at your computer, log on to Netflix and delegate 2 of your 3 DVDs to your kids.

    It used to be that if you liked a particular band, you would line up outside the record store for 4-hours until they opened and purchase a physical copy. Now, you simply boot up iTunes at 12:01AM on the day of release and you can buy a digital version.

    I think you get the idea. But like they say, just because it’s easier, doesn’t mean it’s better, right? I mean, I probably know more people I’ve never met than I do in real life. Of course, this is an exaggeration (I’m actually a level 12 paladin!), but I would bet that for a fair amount of you, this could be the case.

    Where we once had to WAIT for things, they can now be ours instantaneously. No more do you need to run to the store. You can just log on to Alice.com and purchase household goods there. No more do you need to wait to hear back from your wife as to where she is; You can just log on to Twitter and a few seconds later, find out she is eating dinner across the table from you.

    All jokes aside, life has become this huge “Rush! Rush! Rush!”-experience and if you don’t work to keep up… You might be able to stop and enjoy it.

    Let us know what you think in the comments…

     
  • JadoJodo 3:00 pm on September 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Add-Ons, Browsers, Firefox, Mozilla   

    New SixtyEighty Firefox Add-On Pack 

    With Mozilla’s Firefox browser moving ever-closer to the 25% browser market-share point, we’ve decided to release our Official 60/80 Firefox Add-On pack. This pack contains both visual and functional styling for Firefox and has many of your favorites, including:

    Please feel free to subscribe and vote for our pack here.

    Let us know what you think in the comments…

     
  • JadoJodo 11:59 am on September 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Advertising, Google, Streaming, Video, YouTube   

    YouTube: A History of Advertising, Part 1 

    YouTube has long been the #1 site for user-generated videos and has always been free but recently, Google has become more aggressive with their attempts to monetize the site. Their most recent effort involves the use of pre-rolls, or ads played before videos, à la Hulu.

    Hulu Logo

    While Hulu has had varying measures of success with their experiments in advertising, Google has always had more difficulty finding that “sweet spot”. With their acquisition of YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, they continued to show they are committed to providing free services to their users. But as they say, “Nothing is free”.

    Beginning in 2007, YouTube began displaying advertisements similar to those currently offering iTunes or Amazon MP3s of the music featured in the video. From that point forward, YouTube has tried a variety of methods to attempt to replicate the advertising success of its search-engine cousin, Google. Armed with a legion of AdSense customers, and a copyright violating user-base, they’ve managed to try almost every ad-placement known to man.

    Their more recent endeavors have focused primarily on the aforementioned copyright violations, in the form of allowing music rather than removing it, but instead encouraging users to purchase the track from Amazon or iTunes. While this is a good compromise, it still has the effect of placing an advert IN the video. While not completely invasive, it can create a negative association with these types of ads. The result being that a user may find ALL ads placed in the video to be annoying, regardless of their relevance or interest.

    An even newer strategy has been to allow publishers to include television ads (e.g. Geico) that play before a video to generate additional revenue for both parties. However, I can speak confidently for most users in saying that they will not want to watch a 1-minute ad before viewing 3-minutes of footage showing a puppy trying to roll over. YouTube would be better off leaving the videos alone and focusing more on the user experience.

    Have your own opinion? Show us in the comments…

     
    • James 6:36 pm on September 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I think google is going about devolving a revenue source from youtube all wrong. I myself tend to avoid watching videos on youtube because of the ads, their everywhere you look. Rather that focusing on ads aimed at the viewers to gain revenue, I think they could offer a premium service to interested users. This service could include fast loading pages, being featured on various(related and appropriate) video pages, no or a reduced number of ads on the video page, ect. The user with a premium account would only pay some much for each video.

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