Hey readers, new and old!

A few housekeeping notes -

1. YouMakeMedia has an open commenting policy.  All comments, except spam of course, are accepted.  Please utilize this tool - we love to hear from you!
2. If you have any private queries about the site, let us know at our email address - editor {at} youmakemedia {.com}.  Advertisers can use the seperate email, ads {at} youmakemedia {.com}.
3. In the sidebar of the site, we occasionally will feature interesting videos (we’ll put them in a post too so RSS subscribers can see them).  If you have a video that you think encourages mediamakers, showcases good production values, or is just really, really cool, let us know and we’ll look into featuring it.

Thanks for reading YouMakeMedia, we hope you enjoy the site!

P.S. - Do you have any requests for content?  Comment on this post or email us and we’ll see what we can do! 

Searching for video on the web can be a pain. There are so many video hosting/sharing sites on the web that finding the right video you need is like finding a single needle in 500,000 haystacks.

There are several contenders in the video search field though, notably SingingFish and PureVideo Search. Yeah, you can search within the interfaces of other sites such as YouTube or Yahoo! Video, but these sites are different in that they aggregate the results of other sharing sites in one interface.

I decided, for kicks, to put these sites to a bit of an informal test, after the jump that is.

Read the rest of this entry »

Google has just bought YouTube for $1.65 billion (USD). New details say Yahoo was in talks as well up until the very end.

EDIT 1: YouTube’s employees will be unmoved from their current headquarters. This is the largest Google acquisition to date.

EDIT 2: Official Google press release is now out

Just joined the conference call…

The Conference Call

Sergey Brin notes that YouTube reminds him of the early days of Google.

YouTube founder Steve (i think!) says Google’s search will help them “elevate the most relevant videos”. Chad Hurley says they’re “comitted to developing tools to help them [content owners] develop content.”

Talking about Pre-roll ads, they’re exploring integration with Google ads, and doing what it takes to help monetize content.

Eric Schmidt says they’re looking into ways that Google’s tech can help YouTube’s tech.

Copyright next… “from the beginning we’ve always respected rightsholder’s rights. This deal allows us to focus on that…”

In terms of integration, Steve says they’ve been listing potential integration points. “There is no shortage of projects in the weeks ahead.”

On the subject of Google Video, they say that “Google Video does not go away now or ever.”-Chad I think… “Google Video will become more integrated with google overall.”-David Drummond I think… it’s hard to tell from just voice!

No name change.

Finishing up… thanking everyone.

“This is the next step in the evolution of the internet,” says Eric Schimdt at the close.

——————

I’ll go through that webcast audio again tonight so I can properly cite my quotes!

Via TechCrunch

In a press release today, Sony and Google announced a partnership that will put Sony’s videos on Google. Notably, Google Video is referenced by name only once in the press release - is this intentional (hinting toward GooTube) or do they feel that use of Google Video is implied? /end rumour

Also interesting is this bit:

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google will also work together to create a groundbreaking new service that will allow music fans to access user-created music video content featuring certain material from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s library of recorded music, while at the same time respecting the rights of artists and copyright holders.

They’ll be monetizing via AdSense (it’s referenced earlier in the press release). It’s great to see that user-generated content is being taken more seriously however I’m curious as to where this leaves YouTube now that Google has gotten to Sony first. Obviously if Google buys YouTube out, they’re in the clear, but if not that’ll leave the community at YouTube hanging.

Edit: TechCrunch notes that a similar deal with YouTube was announced today, and that the WSJ and NYTimes are reporting that an acquisition could be announced as early as today.

YouTube also announced deals with CBS and Vivendi Universal. As I noted in a previous post, CBS used to be buddies with Google Video (they sold content, notably Survivor, on the service) so this is shaping up to be a very interesting weekend for internet video.

Nickelodeon (US-based children’s television channel) is starting to give kids the chance to mashup cartoons and share the results with their friends, according to an article on Yahoo Business.

Is old media getting it? I’m skeptical - but it’s exciting to see that they are embracing the concept that the fans are co-creating. The mashups can be created at the new “TurboNick” site. I’m also surprised that kids will be able to embed the video into their own sites. This is very impressive on Nickelodeon’s part. Major props.

As their executive Vice President notes:

“There is a big chunk of the audience that wants to delve deeper into the content and be a creator.”

Nickelodeon as a whole has done fairly well in keeping up with the trends. They’ve offered podcasts as a part of their summer show “Mr. Meaty” and recently they had a contest to allow fans to come up with scenes for the anime “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. I am curious as to why they aren’t selling their content online.

I know Viacom and Apple haven’t ever dealt (for a time, CBS had stuff on Google Video) but it still surprises me that Nickelodeon isn’t at least making an effort to get their video to the tech savvy youth.

Via Digg

Wikipedia offers a very extensive collection of free classical music. I’ve utilized their music before for my short “The Bet” (in the sidebar - and the music was selections from Anton Vivaldi’s Four Seasons) but I wasn’t aware they had this much!

I love classical music, though I don’t listen to it enough (a little on our local classical station, some BBC Radio 3, but not much else). I’ve currently downloaded the first part of Handel’s Messiah, and I’m on my way to grab more. Just a note - all the music is in the OGG Vorbis format. OGG is playable in VLC, Foobar2000, Winamp, and Audacity.

This is a fantastic resource for anyone - those who need some background music for a podcast, film, or those who simply want to expand their collection. Definite bookmark!

Via Lifehacker

I’ll admit - I’m a Windows user. Trust me, I want a Mac, but now isn’t the time. It’ll be here soon enough though.

So I set out today to find a time code calculator for my calculation needs, and was shocked to find that timecode calculators for Windows are extremely hard to come by. There are many for Mac (and I found one non-working one for the web) but unfortunately nothing seemed to come up for Windows.

I was fortunate enough though to find this fantastic utility (just before I got very angry): WFT Timecode Calculator. It’s based on a Palm time code calculator. It has a nice interface, it’s easy to use, etc. etc.

Check it out today and get the word out - this utility deserves to be shared!

JahShaka, the free/open source compositing program, released version 2.0 on Wednesday.

The release, which also came with news of version 0.1.0 of the JahPlayer, is advertised as “the most rock-solid version” of the program yet, and features critical bug fixes as well as some updates.

The exciting announcement (for me, more later) is that the version 3.0 of JahShaka will be based on an entirely new codebase, specifically the codebase of the JahPlayer. I’m a fan of JahShaka, I’m a fan of all Open Source (especially in film, we have so little) but honestly I could never get much done in JahShaka. Hopefully this code overhaul will make it easier!

Zoho is a fantastic online office suite featuring word processing, spreadsheets, slideshows, chat, groupware, and tons more. In the past, to use the services, you’ve needed seperate passwords for each service. This just changed a few minutes ago.

As suspected by many (including me), Zoho just rolled out their Single Sign-on, which allows users to have one account for all the services. This is a crucial component in Zoho’s product, and they’ve implemented it fantastically. I’m able to now log in to services that I haven’t used before (such as Zoho Chat) with ease.

The transition is easy if you’re like me and used the same email address and password for each service you signed up on - simply log in. No questions asked. Zoho’s smart enough to see you’re the same person. There are directions though for those who used different emails and passwords. And if you only signed up on one service, you’re all set.

This service is fantastic for those who need to collaborate on projects (at PodDev we use it to write up the show’s outline) be that a budget in Zoho Sheet, a script in Zoho Writer (I’m a Celtx fan, but Zoho is better for two-column documentary style scripts) or for doing all-out organization in Zoho Projects.

Congratulations to the Zoho Team!

Edit: TechCrunch has more thoughts.