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Friday 30 November 2012

YouTube Updates Its Creator Playbook


YouTube has updated its Creator Playbook, an online guide on how to create a successful YouTube channel.
The new Playbook retains all the necessary information from its predecessors – how to create a channel, optimize your video output, and engage with the YouTube community – but the way the information is presented has changed: whereas the previous Playbook was a slide show, the current one has a tab format, allowing creators to easily navigate through the different sections.

YouTube released the first Creator Playbook in 2011, updating it earlier this year. The third and most recent version “includes brand new sections to address YouTube’s recent focus on watchtime,” says Audience Development Coordinator Lauren Vilders on the YouTube Creator blog, “such as, how to captivate your audience and how to create the best channel experience for your viewers.”
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According to Vilders, the update, which is available from YouTube.com/playbook, also “highlights new tools like paid promotion, Hangouts on Air, and InVideo programming to help you reach the widest audience possible.”

YouTube announced earlier this year that watchtime would be its main focus when deciding which channels should have their funding cut. The new Creator Playbook update reaffirms a video’s watchtime as the most measurement of its success.

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As well as updating the Playbook, YouTube has also redesigned the Creator Hub, where creators can keep abreast of Youtube’s announcement via the YouTube Creator blog, watch the videos posted by other creators and connect with YouTube on other social media platforms.

From the Hub, Creators can also sign up for YouTube’s new programmes and Classes, such as Next Creator. YouTube has also built Creator Spaces in London and, more recently, in Los Angeles  for creators to perfect their videos and learn from the most successful YouTube creators. Another YouTube production studio, complete with classrooms, state-of-the-art equipment, editing suites and a green room, is currently under development in Tokyo.

Have you used YouTube’s new Creator Playbook? How is it?

Wednesday 28 November 2012

YouTube Adds Six Languages To Their Automatic Captions


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Google has announced that automatic captions on YouTube are now available in six additional European languages; French, Italian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian.

YouTube now covers a broad range of European languages since these options have been added. Although the automatic captions are far from perfect, they are likely to improve over time.
The captioning feature was originally only available in English when the option was launched in 2009. The video sharing site also now supports Spanish, Japanese and Korean.

Google says that “Automatic captions can be a starting point, where creators can then download them for editing, or edit them in-line on YouTube. Creators can also upload plain-text transcripts in these languages, and the same technology will generate automatically-synchronized captions.”
To choose the language that the captions are shown in, you have to select the closed caption button on a video that has this feature available to it.

YouTube say that they already offer about 200 million videos that come with automatic and human-created captions.

Do you use captions in YouTube videos?

Monday 26 November 2012

YouTube App Now Live on Nintendo Wii U


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YouTube have joined Netflix, Hulu and Amazon by launching an app for the Nintendo Wii U console.
The video sharing site have launched the app that will give users the ability to search for videos, watch them and get additional information on their GamePads.

Wii-UUsers will be able to watch videos in up to 1080p with further details available to bring up on the GamePad’s screen. it also allows users to search for videos and browse other subscribed channels.
The new console is planned to go on sale in Europe and Australia on the 30th of November, and Japan on the 8th of December.
The YouTube app can be downloaded from the Nintendo Wii U main menu.

Will you be buying the Wii U? 

Friday 16 November 2012

Sharing Tweets to Become Available Via Email


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Soon you will be able to share your tweets via email, directly from your Twitter account. Already available on the mobile app, you will be able to send a tweet from your Twitter stream to anyone whether the recipient is a Twitter user or not.

As well as sending the tweet to a friend, you can also choose to add a personal comment to accompany it. The comment will be sent in the body of the email rather than on Twitter. This will able users to comment about a tweet without these comments going public.
A Twitter blog post said: “Of course, you can retweet any of these (posts) to your Twitter followers, but sometimes you want to share with another group, like your college roommates or your parents or a friend who isn’t yet on Twitter.”

The option to email will be available under a ‘More’ button beside the Reply, Retweet and Favorite buttons which currently lay below each tweet found on the site.
Rather than just adding an ‘Email Tweet’ button, the feature will appear under a ‘More’ tab, as shown in the screen shot. This suggests that we will possibly be able to do more with tweets in the near future.
This feature will slowly be released to users over the coming weeks.

What do make of this new addition? Do you think it will help your business?

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Tumblr Attempting to Attract Major UK Advertisers


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The blog platform is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in an attempt to attract UK brands and generate more money.
The site which allows users to upload images and videos has signed up We Are Social, Poke, AKQA, and Bartle Bogle Hegarty as its first UK agency partners.
The site receives 16.8 billion page views monthly and hosts 80.5 million blogs but does not have a UK operation. The tie-ups with these agencies are intended to help the platform boost creativity and increase client satisfaction.

The partnership will give these brands the opportunity to access Tumblr data and be given specialist training in a similar way to Facebook’s Preferred Developer Programme.
The site recently started running paid-for campaigns for brands, unveiling an ad format for users’ dashboards in May. Adidas became the first brand to use this format when they promoted a football blog associated with their sponsorship of Euro 2012.

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The global managing director of We Are Social, Robin Grant, says that Tumblr allows brands to “create a much more branded experience.”
"Tumblr offers something different to Facebook and Twitter in that its users skew a lot younger than other social networks and their behaviour is very different. They curate more content than they create, giving brands the chance to get very rich content shared widely, assuming they make it appealing enough for their followers."

Although many brands prefer to use Facebook and Twitter for their social media advertising and brand building, there are still some UK brands who use Tumblr to post content such as Fosters, Topshop, and Pringle of Scotland. US brands have been quicker to adopt the format with Coca-Cola, Disney, and eBay advertising on the platform.

Will you consider using Tumblr to advertise your brand? How successful do you think it can be compared to Facebook and Twitter?

Friday 9 November 2012

Facebook Launches Gifts For a Second Time


A new iOS application was released on Monday, two years after Facebook’s failed Gifts feature, allowing American users to send friends real-life gifts on their phones.


From the Events section, Facebook allows you to view the upcoming birthdays of your friends and, by clicking a Gift icon beside their names, send them gifts.
The gifts available include a beer making kit, chocolate celebration pops and personalised cards – users don’t even need to know their friend’s physical address to send them.
The application also features changes to the Facebook messenger service and allows users to upload multiple photos from mobile devices at one time.
Facebook have re-invited the press to their Gifts event in New York City after it had to be rescheduled in expectation of Hurricane Sandy.

What do you think about the new Gifts feature?
Leave your comments below.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Obama’s ‘Four More Years’ Tweet is Most Popular of All Time

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The tweet, which simply says, “Four more years,” accompanies a photo of Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama embracing. At the time of writing, it garnered more than 510,000 retweets — and that number is still rising rapidly. Both BuzzFeed and Mediabistro reported that Obama’s victory tweet gets the “all-time” distinction.
Another tweet from Obama, in which he thanks his supporters, is also one of the most popular, having been retweeted more than 144,000 times.
The microblogging network has shared some new stats from Election Day as well. It reported that there were 31 million tweets about the event, peaking at 327,452 tweets per minute when the results of the election were called by media — this makes this year’s election the most-tweeted-about day in history by far.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Did you follow the election on Twitter? Tell us in the comments below.

Monday 5 November 2012

Twitter to Add Photo Filters, Compete With Instagram



Twitter, which once tried to buy Instagram, is set to launch a service that competes with it, according to one report.

The company is preparing a range of photo filters users can add to pictures uploaded to Twitter, several sources within the company told the New York Times. The update would be launched in the coming months, according to the sources. (There was no comment from Twitter’s official channels.)

Whether such a move would succeed — or blunt Instagram’s phenomenal growth (100 million users and counting) — is an open question. Instagram is a stream of photos and comments, with the emphasis placed on the pictures. Twitter is, in effect, the reverse: commentary with occasional pictures.

On Twitter, you have to click to get to the photos, and many of those are Instagrams to begin with. Another advantage Instagram has: you can post pictures to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.
One area where Twitter could see an advantage, however, is if it adds the photo-filtering service to its website. Instagram still only allows uploads via its iPhone or Android apps, although one report back in July suggested that may be about to change.

Facebook was working on its own photo filtering app before the Instagram purchase, one which ultimately got poor marks from reviewers. Evidently, Instagram’s secret sauce — a combination of the right filters, easy sharing and fast loading — isn’t all that easy to replicate.

Would you use photo filters on Twitter if it offered them? Let us know in the comments.

Friday 2 November 2012

Pheed Monetises Social Media


Pheed, the new social media platform planning to compete with the might of Facebook and Twitter, has already gained 1 million subscribers since self-launching last week. Its instant popularity is partly due to the endorsement it has received from celebrity subscribers such as David Guetta, Pharrell Williams and B.O.B, but could also be attributed to Pheed’s features.

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The site’s founders wanted to combine all the features of other social media sites that they liked, without any of the aspects which annoyed them. For example Pheed’s “timeline” displays text, videos, and photos, very much like Facebook’s News Feed, but users can also post audio or even stream live broadcasts on it.
Another novel feature is the ratings system, which allows users to set an age limit on their content, choosing either PG-13 or R. The most obvious introduction, however, is the payment system.
Pheed CEO and co-founder, O. D. Kobo, believes that monetisation is the next logical step for social media, extolling its benefits for users. “It’s not fair that just platforms make money from content”, Kobo told Mashable, “the content creators need to have a fair playground.”

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‘Creators’ will be able to charge their subscribers between $1.99 and £34.99 per month, or per view, the profits of which will be split 50/50 between Pheed and the user.
Kobo believes that monetisation will act as a content filter, getting rid of the large majority of useless information that gets posted on Twitter and clogs up our Facebook News Feeds.
Forbes have called Pheed “Twitter-with-a-business-model”, drawing a direct comparison with the social media giant. In fact, users are granted limited access to their Twitter and Facebook accounts from their Pheed page, with the option either to update your Facebook status, or post a Tweet.

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At one point last week, new subscribers were unable to access Pheed via their Twitter accounts, leading many to suspect that Twitter were actively distancing themselves from what could be perceived as a threat.
In the wake of recent statistics being released which reveal mobile advertising as a large source of Facebook and Google’s advertising revenue, Kobo has considered taking Pheed into the mobile market. At the moment, however, the patent for a Pheed iPhone app is pending approval.

What do you think of Pheed? Does it do anything new or different that excites you?