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Ustream Working On New Revenue Model?
Today, I went into my account at Ustream.TV to convert recorded videos over to MOV format. I started one, then moved onto another one to convert it. I got this:
Relevant in this screenshot is the statement “Maximum is 1 at the Basic user level“.
Basic user level? I didn’t know Ustream had more than one kind of registered user. When you register, you do not choose between user levels. And I see no options to upgrade my account.
I’m left speculating: Is this perhaps a small look into some type of premium membership which Ustream will launch as a way to raise revenue?
Ustream is now using Google Adsense to make some money with their site traffic. A premium program is the most obvious way for Ustream to generate revenue on it’s own. It just makes sense. And perhaps increased recording format conversions would be one of the premium features.
And, chances are, I’d be one of the first in line to sign up for a premium Ustream account if the offering is good. Give me some better bandwidth and I’ll fly out there and cook you dinner, too.
Google Reader Gets Notes – And Its Kinda Stupid
I have been a long time user of Google Reader. It is really convenient for monitoring all the various blogs that I want to keep track of. It has some drawbacks (like not being able to nest folders), but one that Google decided to solve was a problem I didn’t even think was a problem.
Being that it is an RSS reader, the stories that you could share out were limited to the RSS feeds that you subscribe to. You couldn’t share a single story without subscribing to the site’s feed and sharing just the story you are interested in. With things like FriendFeed out there which provide new portability to your Google shared items, Google decided it was time to allow easier sharing of a single link without requiring a corresponding RSS feed. Their fix puts Google Reader just a bit more into the category of, say, FriendFeed.
Google Reader now has “notes“. Basically, you can copy and paste any link you want into your Reader and share it. When you click on Notes, you get a simply textarea box where you can type/paste anything you want. You can free-form type or paste a URL. It looks like it is essentially setting up your own RSS feed within Google Reader and using that to share out to your friends.
It is a cool addition (I guess), but too little too late. FriendFeed still blows Reader away in terms of allowing easier sharing of single items from the web.
Reader is also adding the ability to choose an icon to represent your page in your shared items. Say what?
Google is trying to make Reader do too much. It isn’t really supposed to be a social networking tool. It is an RSS reader and in that mission it does very well. These little add-ons to make it more FriendFeed/Twitter like are borderline lame.
Source: Google
Alexa Overhauls Stats: You Seeing Changes?
Alexa has long been used as a source for data on traffic for websites. Problem is, it has also long been known for being wildly inaccurate. It is a decent indicator of trends, but not actual traffic. Well, Alexa has announced it is changing the way it counts traffic, according to a story on Techcrunch.
From the announcement:
In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest. Ask and you shall receive!
We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.
The announcement is, of course, spin. The system was flawed in it’s prior form, with total reliance on the Alexa toolbar. Fail.
Amit is tracking how this change has affected some of the leading bloggers.
For my part, I checked out Alexa’s rating for PCMech. It seems to have helped my ranking, actually. I seem to recall, last time I checked, the ranking was a little over 40,000. Now it is sitting at 28,945. Rock on.
Importing List to Aweber – Very Drawn Out
I talked earlier about how I decided to move my email lists over to Aweber. As many who have done this know, it is the importing process that is the most grueling.
Today, I am on the 5th group of 2000 imports into the Aweber system. Tomorrow, they are supposed to review my email list and then make an evaluation on whether they’re going to allow me to import the remainder of the list.
I have to say, it is pretty damn frustrating. When I talk with support to get some real answers on the criteria they are looking for, I get no real answers at all. Just total vagaries.
As I expected while making this switch, I have a lot of subscribers who are failing to re-confirm to the list. I view this as a list-cleaning action, because if people aren’t reading the emails I send them, why have them there, right?
What I don’t know, and what Aweber won’t tell me, is if the low re-confirmation rate means they are going to disallow further imports.
I will report back on how this goes. I know, in the future, I am likely to have some people read this who are thinking of switching to Aweber with existing lists and are worried about this process. So far, my impression is that Aweber is a great company. I dig their system and I am definitely seeing higher per-day new subscription numbers. This could only be because of the much higher delivery rate for Aweber as compared to my in-house system.
So, I’m happy I’m making this move.
My plan B, should Aweber deny the rest of the imports, is simply to send out a mass email on my old system, tell them about the situation, and tell them to go to PCMech and re-subscribe for the list anew.
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
WYSIWYG Flash Programming Sprouts Up
This looks to have "super-cool" written all over it. Sprout is a new web-based application which serves as a WYSIWYG editor for Flash applets. It was released today Tuesday at DEMO.
From the website:
Building a sprout is easy. Choose from dozens of pre-built templates or start from scratch. Drag-and-drop shapes, text, images, video, and more. Then add components such as slideshows, jukeboxes, and countdown clocks, as well as interactive services such as chat (Meebo), phone (Ribbit), fundraising (ChipIn), and more. Once you’ve got your content in place, use advanced editing and navigation tools to perfect your sprout.
Sprout is getting around the usual need to use programming for more advanced functions in Flash. They are integrating with third-party services to provide powerful mashup capability. It is reported that they should be releasing an SDK in the next month or so to allow others to add their own components to the Sprout library.
Sprout is currently in private beta, but you can put yourself onto the notification list to find out more when it becomes available to the public.
Switching To Aweber – Part 1
Perhaps it is about time. But, I am going to attempt to make a promotional platform switch to Aweber. For those who may not know, Aweber is a company which allows you to host managed email lists. They are very well known and admired among my peers and primarily for one reason: reliable deliverability. Here are some reviews from some of my blogging peers:
- Aweber – a First Impression. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger
- Aweber Review. Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey.
- The Switch. Christina Favreau of Savvy Entrepreneur.
- 5 Reasons Why I Love Aweber. Marketing With Miles.
Currently, I am managing all of my email lists through 1-2-All, put out by ActiveCampaign. It is very good software and will continue to use it when needed. The problem is that it is tied to my domain. That means that any spam filters out there who flag my emails are going to essentially blacklist PCMech as a domain name.
Not good.
Now, I am not spamming anybody. Everybody is opt in. But, you have two things at work here:
- Spam filtering systems are on computers, and computers don’t judge.
- Even legit, opt-in subscribers sometimes get itchy trigger fingers and report you as spam. It pisses me off, but it happens.
On a list of around 26,000 subscribers, I might get around 4,000 reading the thing. That means well over 20,000 emails are being sent, not bouncing, but not really arriving either. That is not a good stat.
So, switching to Aweber is an attractive option. It means paying for my email lists again, but your email list is gold and it is worth it. Also, by having somebody managing my lists whose entire job it is to make sure my email gets to the recipient, I am quite sure my emails will be more effective.
The Catch
In order to safeguard their systems, Aweber puts some pretty serious restrictions on importing existing lists. Namely,
- Every subscriber is going to have to reconfirm themselves to my list
- Aweber is going to limit me to 2,000 imported addresses per day for the first 5 days. On each import, they are going to scan the addresses for verification. If Aweber determines the list if of low quality, they may deny the import. If the list passes verification, then they will permit me to import the remaining addresses without hassle.
So, the fact of the matter is that, while my list is going to be much higher quality after this import is done, it is very likely to be a much smaller list than I went in with. And, there is no guarantee that they will import them at all. It is all up to their internal quality control.
So, what I am doing is signing up for a 30-day trial. I am going to start this process and see how it goes. If I end up having problems, I can always cancel.
If it does work, then from there on out I know that I am building a much higher quality list.
I will report how it goes. I’m sure this import process is going to be tedious. Part 2 will come later, as I report how the import went.
Google Analytics AIR Beta Signup
Most of us know about Google Analytics, the web statistical package from Google. Well, it has an API, and one programmer named Nicolas Lierman has developed a desktop application using Adobe AIR to bring your Analytics reports to your desktop. Very cool, I say! He is getting ready to release as a public beta, but is waiting for enough people to sign up for it. So, if you’re interested, head on over to his site and sign up.
Understanding Facebook Basics
OK, after a couple of posts which discuss the impact of Facebook on the web, let’s get down to “brass tacks” here and see what Facebook is all about at the ground level. After all, like about 150,000 people do every day, I recently created a Facebook profile. On the surface, it appears like most social network sites. I have friends, comments, and we can send messages back and forth. OK, cool, but not too impressive. So, what else? How did Facebook get to be thought of as a disruptive technology ?
Facebook Opened Up
Myspace was long considered to be the leading social networking site. But, Myspace is anything but open. As many of you probably know, getting any external content into your Myspace profile is essentially an exercise in hacking the Myspace profile page. You embed a bunch of CSS and crap into the “About Me” section and overwrite the default design of the Myspace page. That seems like a hack to me.
Facebook opened up to third party developers with the release of it’s Facebook Platform. Now anybody can create Facebook applications which are embeddable into a Facebook profile. The end effect is that one’s profile is highly customizable. There is a fast growing library of Facebook applications to choose from, including things like:
- My Questions. An app that allows you to ask questions of your friends and essentially poll them.
- Causes. Allows you to start or join in on causes and raise money for things you care about. Very powerful for non-profits.
- Sticky. Leave sticky notes on your friends’ profiles.
At this time, it looks like there are over 3,200 applications in the library. I added one, for example, which allows me to display my Flickr photos on my Facebook profile. But, what we have here is more than just cool, useless crap you can add to your profile. We have here a mechanism of centralizing your online identity and combining all of it into one big social network. As more and more companies release Facebook applications (and more and more will continue to do so), the possibilities open up even more. In fact, just as I was writing here, I got an email from Chitika saying they now have a Facebook app in order to see who in your network bought what and get feedback. That is using the power of your social network for shopping and reviews.
The Basic Facebook Profile
At it’s core, the Facebook profile has what you would expect of a social network profile. A welcome change from Myspace is that the profiles are clean (no more animated GIFs and loud background music). When you create a profile, you enter data about yourself as you see fit. You can then find your friends by city, school, college, or just by general search. You add them as your “friend” by simply clicking the button to do so. They will need to approve the request before you will end up as their friend on the network.
The wall is a place in the profile where you and others can post quick messages (similar to the comments on Myspace profiles).
Outside of these normal social networking functions, the rest of the system relies on the applications. You browse the apps list and you can add anything you want to your profile. The beauty of it is that it is so open. They have taken this social network site and opened it up in such a way that it can expand in infinite directions, all based on what the community does with it.
And people who follow this stuff (like me) are digging it big time. Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch, said of Facebook:
The payoff is two way. Not only do developers get deep access to Facebook’s twenty million users, Facebook also becomes a rich platform for third party applications.
Facebook’s strategy is almost the polar opposite from MySpace. While MySpace frets over third party widgets, alternatively shutting them down or acquiring them, Facebook is now opening up its core functions to all outside developers.
and Robert Scoble also got bitten by the bug.
So, go create a Facebook profile and experiment with the applications. That is where you will begin to see how the thing comes together.
Youtube Launches New Ads, VideoEgg Takes Notice
It really was only a matter of time. Youtube is launching new ads that appear IN the videos. Is this rubbing some users the wrong way? You bet.
Better than Preroll?
As online video gets so popular (and Youtube is the current king in the arena), more emphasis is going to shift to video advertising. Youtube, particularly, would be interested in video ads because so many of their videos appear outside of Youtube. Even on Youtube’s site, you don’t see any ads. One would think they’d use some Google ads on there, but they don’t (at least I’m not seeing them).
Given that video ads on Youtube has been on the horizon all along, the question was what format. Pre-roll ads (where the ad plays before the main video) are common, but tend to piss off viewers. Post roll isn’t as effective because they’ve already watched the content. So, Google decided to do something a little different with Youtube – trying to satisfy their viewers.
Embedded Video Ads
Their new format will slide in an ad from the bottom of the video about 10 seconds into the clip. It overlays right on top of the video. If you click on the ad, it will pause the video and show the advertisement. When you close the ad, the video will continue playing. Here is a video which demonstrates the new format.
Viewers Respond
Just looking at that one video, you can get a sense for the polarizing effect this has had on Youtube viewers. Such as:
whats the big deal. tiny ad and it disappeared.. compare that with the shit that yahoo makes you watch 40 secs between each vid. Google paid 1.6B for utube they should make some money of their investment
and
I gotta’ agree here. As if “Just a small percentage of viewing space” isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal. I don’t want ads invading the pleasure of viewing videos on youtube. It’s obtrusive and annoying.
VideoEgg Responds
VideoEgg is a competitor to Youtube, and they have responded by saying Youtube is copying their ad format. And check out the VideoEgg site to see that they have backed up that story with a HUGE kick in Youtube’s nads.
Take that, Youtube.
Will Youtube Share?
The question I have is whether Youtube will issue payments to publishers, similar to what they do for Adsense. I really think they should.
Skype Outage and Implications, Lessons
Well, if you are a Skype user, you are probably now well aware that they experienced a widespread service outage on Thursday of last week. I was not trying to use Skype during the outage, but reports are that people were having problems logging into the network as well as consistent notifications of IMs not being delivered. Also, the Skype client was reported to be crashing alot. Yikes. Well, what caused it?
According to the Wired Magazine blog:
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, the eBay subsidiary attributed the problem to a “deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software.” According to Skype, “this [algorithm] controls the interaction between the user’s…client and the rest of the Skype network.”
That’s really vague. Yesterday, Skype’s Villu Arak posted to the Skype Heartbeat page that they will be posting a more detailed explanation of the problem on Monday (tomorrow as of this writing). Monitor the Heartbeat page for updates on the situation and, more importantly, their explanation as to why this happened. Did they install an update to the network that crashed it? That is my current speculation.
So, what does this mean?
Well, first off, it really does prove the point of VOIP skeptics that internet enabled phone is not ready for prime time. One of the major selling points of Skype has been reliability, and here they just experienced a several day outage. Anybody who depended on Skype would have been screwed. But, the issue puts a shadow over all of internet-enabled phone. We’re still at a point where it is not as reliable as the phone system.
Of course, most VOIP users know this, which does limit the long term damage to the reputation of Skype. I am a Skype user, but I would never use Skype as a replacement to phone. I also use Vonage in the office. It’s almost as dependable as my home phone.
Another interesting thought out of all of this is the importance of the blog as a medium of communication. When the Skype outage began, the blogoshere erupted with posts about it. At first, Skype was rather quiet about the situation (a mistake), but they quickly began posting regularly to their Heartbeat blog on what was going on. His posts were not very informative. Just “we’re working on it and the situation is improving” kind of posts. However, I think the machine-gun style posts to the blog was part of an effective PR strategy to limit the damage to their reputation. After all, where there is a vacuum of knowledge, the community will make crap up to fill it.
Aside from what this says about internet phone, there is a lesson here for companies on how to use a blog for the purposes of PR.
As for long term damage to Skype, I doubt that will prove to be the case. After all, most Skype users do not depend on it. they use it to chat with friends, and most of us have alternative means of communication. Besides, if somebody is using a Windows-based chat client (Skype) as their primary method of communication, they have their own problems to deal with. I’m just saying.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
