YouTube Removes Stats for Number of Videos a User Has Viewed

YouTube has permanently removed the stats display for the number of videos a user has watched from user profile pages. Anyone who spends much time on YouTube quickly so the number of videos they viewed reach into the thousands or tens of thousands.

When I first noticed the display was gone, I assumed it was because people were complaining to YouTube that they did not want the world to know they had watched 300,000 videos. By chance I was browsing a YouTube developer/bug report forum on their site and came across the following post from a legitimate YouTube staff member:

“We’ve seen some of you asking what occurred to the number of video views displayed on your channel. Unfortunately, due to technical constraints, we had to permanently disable this feature. This is not a bug, it is no longer an available feature on the site.”

Looks like you can kiss that stat goodbye.

HULU Subscription Fees Set For 2010

Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman of News Corp, revealed HULU will begin charging for subscriptions as early as 2010. While Carey said that some content would remain free, he explained that a free model of distribution did not do their content justice.

I think a subscription based model could work well for HULU. They are capturing a lot of content and broadcasting it in unique ways. Example: I was able to watch the every play of the last Notre Dame football game in about 42 minutes. This was the fastest paced football I’ve ever seen. All parts of the broadcast that didn’t involve game play were cut out. This literally changed the football viewing experience 180 degrees for me.

We all understand the downsides that come from free services. The YouTube Lag problem has been driving me nuts for months. I’d gladly pay a few dollars each month for better service. HULU has picked up on this and is running with it. Would you pay for HULU?

YouTube Turns Down The Lights

After giving up on Hulu during one of my recent posts, I headed over to YouTube trying to find a good playlist to occupy my speakers over the next few hours. Once the first video began to play I noticed a new button near the top of the player. I moused over the button and a “Turn Down The Lights” message appeared and as I clicked it the page around the YouTube player turned to dark gray.

The difference a darker page makes is amazing! After I left the page and went to a different video the “turn down the lights” icon was gone. Apparently this optional icon is available for use for videos published by “director” class users (anyone can be a director) and Youtube Partners. You’re not likely to see the feature showing up on any of your favorite shorter clips anytime soon.

Turn Down The Lights in action:

It seems the pace of YouTube’s evolution may be increasing. I am noticing small changes almost every week this summer. It almost makes their site interesting again.

Is YouTube taking advantage of the recent negative feedback hulu users have been posting on their blogs and message boards by releasing new features at the height of user frustration on other networks? Does all this work by the YT engineers somehow tie in with a plan to decrease financial losses in the 2nd half of 2009? Will YouTube ever find ways to solve their revenue situation? Are sponsored videos going to add any significant revenue? Wait and see.

Download YouTube Videos Easily

Did you know anyone can easily download any YouTube video by adding the word “kiss” to the front of “youtube” in the url?

Example:

http://www.kissyoutube.com…(visit external link)

YouTube has been impressing critics and advertisers with new user friendly features this summer. I hope they continue to focus on developing the social networking aspect of their services. The new channel designs featuring more customizable layouts are a step in the right direction.

Thanks to Chad King for sending me this video clip.

AT&T BlueRoom and iPhones at Bonnaroo

AT&T BlueRoom featured great live performances this weekend from the scene of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester Tennessee.   One unplanned gift AT&T gave Bonnaroo fans watching from home was multiple live video streams being webcast from the iPhones in the crowd.

As I write this article, a fan is broadcasting tonight’s live Phish show on his Ustream.tv Channel to over 4700 remote viewers. The viewers can “Tweet” in a side chat panel. Once submitted, each tweet is automatically tagged with #phish and the URL of the video feed, what great promotion.

Tweets, YouTube and Facebook mobile uploads from the crowd are overloading AT&Ts bandwidth between songs. This causes the video feed to get choppy momentarily, but once a new song starts the quality returns.  Enormous use of social media and blogging has lead some media to refer to this years even at “Bloggaroo 2009″.