Why Google Buying YouTube Is A Good Idea

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Yesterday, someone sent me an email about the Google/YouTube deal with the note “seems like an absurd amount of money.” Well, i think it was a good deal for Google. Here’s why:

  1. YouTube has critical mass which is VERY hard to get
  2. YouTube (like Google Video) is a complete browser-based system which fits in with google’s long-term scheme of providing a browser suite (mail, calendar, tv, etc.) on low cost computers to undercut Windows and Apple and dominate the world.
  3. 10% of all google traffic goes to youTube and they are the number 2 destination people go to (#1 is MySpace). Earlier Google did a strategic deal with MySpace so now the top 2 places people go to from Google are to google-friend sites
  4. This further underscores that the actual technology is no longer the most important asset in the web 2.0 world. Revver, JumpCut and even AOL Video have better technologies but YouTube has users and users are what matter. TagWorld, CyWorld, Bebo, Faces.com, and Multiply are all better than MySpace in that they look better, they have more and better features but MySpace has critical mass
  5. Page views equal cash and YouTube has a lot of them. Because they haven’t fully monetized them yet doesn’t mean they won’t. They needed a partner with an ad serving system and relationships with advertisers – Google’s the best at both. In fact, Scoble was wondering what it would have been like if Microsoft had bought YouTube – and it all comes back to who has the relationships with the advertisers. Google’s #1 business is advertising and now they added a major piece of page inventory and now dominate web video inventory too (YouTube is 48% of all web video).
  6. 1.5 Billion is a good price in my mind. People said 1/2 a billion was too much for MySpace. Less than a year later, MySpace got $900 million from Google so it could power the search on the site. There’s clearly money to be made here and 1.5 B isn’t too much in my mind.

What do you think?

How to Save our Civilization (quote)

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Quick quote by Lester Brown who is the author of over 50 books and thought to be “the guru of the environmental movement.”

One of the questions I am frequently asked when I am speaking in various countries is, Given the environmental problems that the world is facing, can we make it? That is, can we avoid economic decline and civilizational collapse? My answer is always the same: it depends on you and me, on what you and I do to reverse these trends. It means becoming politically active. Saving our civilization is not a spectator sport.

A good bio of Lester is here.  Check him out, he’s a legend

And I Thought My Apartment in NY Was Small

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So this is the most expensive place on a cost per foot basis i’ve ever seen. Check this out – it’s a home built on the head of a pin. While that’s not super interesting in itself, it has been constructed with ridiculously detail. The artist, Mr. Wigan, said:

I spent 15 hours a day for seven weeks sculpting a minute piece of diamond. The beams are made out of floating fibres that you see in sunlight. To paint the house, I took the hair from a dead spider’s legs and made a paintbrush. Then it was a case of being very patient and careful.

Are you serious? 15 hours a day for 7 weeks for this thing?! Well, apparently it’s worth it as it’s selling for 20,000 pounds in England. (article)

This Trailer Will Blow Your Mind

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I loved Sin City. It’s mix of realistic images and animation was very cool and Mickey Rourke’s character was a total badass. Of course, it was a Frank Miller graphic novel moved to the screen. This next trailer of a film called 300 is also a graphic novel by Frank Miller and from the trailer it looks like it could be the badass movie of the year. Check it:

The trailer is here (sorry its not up on YouTube yet so i couldn’t embed)

The generic info for the movie is:

Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=wDiUG52ZyHQ]

New to MySpace? Use Good Etiquette

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A lot of people i know are jumping on the MySpace train. I read a useful article (here) that lists some simple rules that will help you get and keep friends. Some of my favorites are:

 

• Another thing that might strike a chord with paranoid MySpacers is the mythical MySpace tracker. To put it simply, MySpace trackers don’t exist yet. Don’t be scared if you look at someone’s profile hourly. They can’t tell.

• Writing a comment to everyone on your list is a nice sentiment, but when using that pretense to just get comments back, it’s lame. You know who you are.

• Ladies, if a creepy guy you’ve never met adds you and he has nothing but half-dressed girls on his page, don’t add him back.

• Reading and commenting on blogs is a serious sign of affection. It proves the person cares about your inner thoughts. Don’t ignore these.

• Never under any circumstance devote your entire MySpace to random girlfriend/boyfriends. “Michael is the reason I get up in the morning — this week.”

• Having 500 friends and 20 comments is a mental sign for everyone to not like you. Add people you know. Be as popular as you are — or aren’t.

• Never respond to a private message with a public comment. That’s rude.

• Mirror pictures are ideal. Any picture taken by oneself deserves credit. It’s an art form. Comment on these with something more than “I think you’re hot.”

• Comments consisting of less than eight words are a waste of time.

• No one important will read your personal 100-question survey.

Obviously, these are just the tip of the iceberg. But, if you’re new, it’s worth jumping in (although i know plenty of people who spend way too much time there). If you’re an old hat, i just hope you don’t have an all black page with pink fonts. Ugh!

Some Insults, Back When Insults Had Class

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“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” Ernest Hemingway (in reply to William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
Abraham Lincoln

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” Winston Churchill

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend…if you have one.” George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…if there is one.” Winston Churchill, in reply.

Green Chairs – Perfect for City Living

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epgrow.jpgI spent much of my summer on a roof basking in the hot DC sun. While i love living in the city, i also love grass and the feel of soft grass. I think my problems are now solved with the Grow Chaise or the Nomad Grass Lounger. These are just what a man needs to bring nature into the city.

There are several designers making green furniture and i mean not just the color.  Frankly, if you live in the city, this is the best thing next to a park.
mattgagnonnomad.jpgMatt Studio, the designer behind the Nomad (above) creates all sorts of works that bring together the individual and their surroundings.  Ths is not unlike the philosophy behind Emily Plinton who designed the lounge to the right.  She believes that beauty can lie in unexpected places.  Amen to that.  Now i just need to get one of these on the roofdeck next to the kiddie pool.

(found that dean likes these too)

Atlas Shrugged and Angelina

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Note: Spoiler Alert belowjolie

According to this latest press release, they are going to make a movie of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged and Angelina is going to play Dagney. Great book and she’d be a good Dagney

I wonder who will play the millionaire playboy Francisco D’Anconia the badass capitalist Hank Reardon, or the man behind the plot John Galt who is a brilliant physicist and philosopher and creator of “Galt’s Gulch” where the brilliant minds of the world go.

Its important to note that Dagney hooked up with all 3 of these guys, so whoever gets to play them is going to get some action. The word is that Brad Pitt wants to play Reardon even though Galt eventually ends up with her.

Like Movies and Want to Waste Some Time?

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It’s Friday and you know what that means – new movie releases! To honor the day, i’m going to post about some movie sites i’ve seen recently

The DoublerDouble Features!

To my parents: “I learned it from watching you!”My parents showed me how you can maximize the value of your$7 movie ticket by going to multiple shows back-to-back. We’d walk out of one and ask “so what next?” The accidental doubler is great, but over the years, we’ve begun to actually plan our lineup is before hitting the theater. You can imagine my happiness when i found the Double Feature Finder online which takes this to the next level. Check it out here. It lets you choose your theater and then it will sort through the times and lineup your double-feature. As they say on the site, “never sneak into movies again”

Dark Movie Finder

This is an interesting little online game which is also a clever little ad for M&M’sDark Movies new dark chocolage candies. In the game, there’s a large painting and in it there are 50 movie titles from a “dark” film hidden (there are also little M&M guys). Each movie title is represented by a visual riddle. To play you scroll around the painting until you figure out a visual clue, double-click, type your guess and so on. For example, the picture to the left shows Blade and Silence of the Lambs. Some of the other movies in the picture are: The Birds, The Fly, Invisible man, Wicker Man, Candyman, and so on. Enjoy and feel free to post what movies you found in there in the comments.  (game is here)
Online Movie Quiz

This is just a classic time waster. The site is a movie quiz which poses 20 questions to you. Each question has 4 pictures from a movie which don’t reveal any plot or major characters. You then have to guess from a list of 10 movies which film it is (here). I found that if i was familiar with the movie, i could usually get it right. If i wasn’t, i could usually guess correctly 75% of the time. But 100% of the time, i was pretty sure my time was being wasted and my life was becoming more and more worthless.

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