Google TV : still under the radar

I went to visit the Google Zeitgeist page today and stumbled on a prominent new link there for something called Google Current: The TV network created by the people who watch it.

Google TV is here now. And it's all about viewer-created content. Anyone can submit a video. And people will vote as to which videos get top billings. Here's the intro from Google Current:

Current is about what's going on: stories from the real world, told by you. We slice our schedule into short segments that we call "pods" -- each just a few minutes long. You'll see profiles of interesting people on the rise, intelligence on trends as they spring up around us, and international news from new perspectives.

We call it viewer-created content, or VC2. Right now, VC2 makes up about a third of our channel -- and that share is growing. Anyone who wants to contribute can upload a video. Then, everyone in the Current online community votes for what should be on TV. You can join in at either stage -- watch & vote or create & upload. (We've also got online training to help you get the skills you need to make TV!)

Current TV has been around for a couple of years and Google has been involved at a minor level for a few months, but the new link at Zeitgeist seems to indicate a ramping-up of the Google TV initiative.

Getting links from an A-List Blogger

Here's a humorous look at trying to get links from A-List Bloggers. Click on the images to enlarge;






Check out the very funny User Friendly at Userfriendly.org

Has your site been selected for 'Site Targeting'?

Has your site been selected by any Adsense advertisers for site targeting?

I've got a couple of tiny blogs and didn't think that any advertisers would be specifically interested in them, but it turns out I've already got at least one advertiser who's selected one of them for CPM based site targeting advertising.

Want to quickly see if your site has also been targeted already?

If you're signed on with Adsense, and you are looking at your 'advanced reports' page, you need to click on the box that says "Show Data by" (page or individual ad unit). Click on 'individual ad unit', and also mark the box that comes up as "Show data by targeting type - contextual or site".

For clearer instructions and more about site targeting, see JenSense here.

Google as a Web Host (2nd Generation)

Google is set to become a second generation web hosting firm.

This week Google acquired Upstartle, the makers of 'Writely', an online word processor. This combined with other Google services will pose a big challenge to Microsoft Office. Google is inspired by the idea of a world with infinite storage and bandwidth.

See a good overview of where Google is headed at the SEO Blog

See the other big theory about Google becoming the world's largest web host here.

Video Blogging and the 21st Century

Have you noticed how YouTube has suddenly come out of nowhere to be seen everywhere on blogs in the last couple of months?

YouTube was founded less than a year ago by two ex-PayPal employees. Their growth has been spectacular. They've been growing much faster than Google Video, probably mostly because they seem to be ignoring copyright issues (unlike Google) and they let everyone post the videos directly from their blogs (something Google just announced they have also started doing this week).

Most blogging platforms, including Blogger, will enable you to display a YouTube clip on your site. Here's an example (Jon Stewart discussing Hilary Clinton's "The Look") below:


I stopped watching the news on TV a long time ago. I can't take it seriously anymore. A lot of other people feel this way. A huge chunk of the younger generation now lists a comedy show (the Daily Show) as their main source of news. Yesterday Alyson Wardhas wrote an excellent summary about how Stewart's Daily Show may represent the future of what news will look like in the 21st century.

See also an interesting discussion about YouTube here at Matthew Haughey's site.

Here's the traffic growth over the New Year comparing YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and IFilm. Source: Hitwise



Update October 2006: YouTube was just snapped up by Google for 1.6 billion. It may sound like a ton of money for a company that's not even two years old and has less than 70 employees, but hey, it really is the future of television.