Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on October 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

When NBC Universal and News Corp announced that they were teaming up back in March, most people assumed that they were doing so to take on YouTube by launching a video sharing site. As it turns out, they had no intention of competing with YouTube and instead had their eyes set on creating a place where people would be able to view premium video content online. Eventually they named the service Hulu, and just yesterday they took the first step necessary to bring it out to the public by launching a private beta. All it takes is an email address, and you can sign up to get an invite.

Hulu has a lot going for them, especially when you take into consideration the fact that they’ve teamed with AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo who will eventually have the premium content available on their sites as well with their own customized video player. They also own the content that will be available which is another huge advantage. When you take a look at the line-up of shows that they’ll be offering, the service is even more impressive with shows like:

• Prison Break
• House
• Bones
• Heroes
• Scrubs
• 24
• My Name is Earl
• and more…

So with a great list of shows in high quality and what appears to be a good interface, is there anything that could prevent Hulu from being a success? NewTeeVee points out a few of their weaknesses – among them are their resistance to anything other than big media shows, and the lack of some way to get viewers to participate in the experience like writing a review for an episode. Another big weakness is that all of the content is ad-supported, they don’t offer an alternative like a monthly subscription to view shows ad-free.

Certainly they’ve got weaknesses, but their strong points are just that, strong. Not only do they have the TV shows, but they also have videos and the option for users to email or even embed the content to share with others. This week they’ll be letting in thousands of beta testers to try it out with even more welcomed in each week after. TV programming on the web is here, and I think it’s here to stay. I’ve submitted my email address to request an invite, and now I can’t wait to try it out. It certainly sounds impressive but leaves me wondering, will Hulu will put a dent in Joost’s user-base?

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This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Can you believe it’s already been a year since Viacom tried to purge Google’s money bank with a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube? Ever since March of last year (2007) when the lawsuit was filed, we hadn’t really heard much of what was going on, until yesterday. According to the Associated Press, YouTube is claiming that the Viacom suit against them is a threat to online communication. This claim was officially filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as YouTube’s response to Viacom.

So what exactly does Google mean by this claim? Google said that if they have to become liable for Internet communication, and thus other carriers and hosting providers would have to become liable, Viacom “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”

What Google has going for them is that they say they do their very best to follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In fact, they believe they go above and beyond what is even required of them, but it’s still not good enough for Viacom. According to Viacom, they have found over 150,000 clips of copyrighted material on YouTube and they say those videos have been viewed over 1.5 billion times. Despite what Google says, that they remove copyrighted content and help content owners protect their work, Viacom says Google does “little or nothing” to help stop the infringement.

It’s turned into a big game of “he said, she said” and from the sounds of it, it’s only going to get uglier before all is said and done. From our knowledge, we believe Google does what they can to keep copyrighted videos off of YouTube, yet Viacom says making those videos available is part of YouTube’s business plan. Heck, YouTube even implemented a copyright filter (which launched back in October) to help identify copyrighted content as it appears on the site. What more can YouTube do? Should they lose this battle with Viacom, I believe they could be right in that it will threaten online communication.

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An all-male group (see also: boy band) from Yeshiva University is tearing up the YouTube charts with a new ode to Chanukah titled “Candlelight.” The holiday-themed takeoff on Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” features such memorable lines as “I flip my latkes in the air sometimes sayin ayy ohh spin the dreidel.”

The video, which has been online since November 3rd, has already racked up more than 800,000 views on the Google-owned video sharing service.

The Maccabeats themselves have been around since 2007. A largely a capella group, they “perform an eclectic array of Jewish, American, and Israeli songs” and are “committed to the philosophy of Torah u-Madda, the integration of traditional and secular wisdom,” according to their site.

“Candlelight” was played on the Today Show this morning, and yes, they will play your Bar Mitzvah.

Video after the jump.

This article was written on May 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

We’ve mentioned UTube before, not to be confused with YouTube, the popular video site.  Last November, the Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation (UTube.com) decided that they were going to sue YouTube. They went from getting 1,500 visitors per month to over 2 million once the video site gained popularity. Some might view this as the perfect opportunity to make some extra money off of someone’s mistake, but UTube owners filed a lawsuit stating that they wanted YouTube to stop using the domain, or reimburse them for a new corporate identity.

Now if you were UTube and you started receiving all of that traffic, you’d think that they would realize the potential that’s there and work to make money off of the domain for the long haul, instead of making money via a lawsuit.

Eventually they caught on to that idea because in December, UTube threw up a sponsored search box , some links to monetize the site, and pushed the original content of the site down the page.

Fast forward to now, and UTube is making a decent profit. According to Red Herring, UTube is making an estimated $1,000 per day off of the ring-tone search engine that is certain to attract some of the YouTube seeking users who make the mistake of entering UTube.com into their browser’s address bar.

While their bandwidth costs undoubtedly went up as a result of YouTube’s popularity, an extra $30,000 per month should certainly cover it, and give them some leftover money – yet they’re still suing.

I’d have to imagine that this is the easiest money that corporation has ever made, and I think it’s about time they drop their suit.

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Who is 2010’s tech person of the year? Is it Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s youngest billionaire, who helped transform Facebook into a global juggernaut, donated absurd amounts of money to charity, and was the basis for the year’s most critically acclaimed film?

What about Steve Jobs, who turned the tech world on its head yet again with the introduction of the iPad, which kickstarted the consumer tablet market?

Maybe it’s Meg Whitman, or Carly Fiorina, who both parlayed CEO jobs at prominent tech companies into much-publicized bids for office in California.

I would like to throw my support behind another candidate–that’s right, Justin Bieber (OMG, et al). The 16-year-old Canadian pop singer earned a top spot in tech headlines this year, thanks in no small part a seemingly permanent spot atop Twitter’s trending topics.

Bieber made a name for himself after his young mother began uploading videos of her son performing song covers. He quickly built up a legion of absurdly loyal–and intense–fans who have grown up on social networking. As various social networks reveal their year-end lists of hot topics, the point is made all the more clear: 2010 was the year of the Bieber.

After the jump, check a round up of our Bieber coverage from 2010.