Didn't they think it was fishy when Google credited 11 inventors on two continents in its newly-issued patent? That's a lot of brainpower for child's play, and even for, as the patent calls it, a broader "WEB-BASED SYSTEM FOR GENERATION OF INTERACTIVE GAMES BASED ON DIGITAL VIDEOS." (Thanks to commenter theodp for pointing the patent out to us.)

Google illustrated the patent with pictures of the age-old kids game "rocks, paper, scissors," and described some very boring uses, like:

Clicking on an annotation corresponding to a 'rock', "paper", or "scissors" menu item leads to separate video or portion of the same video depicting a tie, a win, or a loss, respectively, each outcome potentially leading to the display of additional annotations representing a second round of the game.

Whatever. This will be used immediately for porn. And even though that sort of thing is not allowed on YouTube per se, Google will earn further insane riches on the royalties.

Or so we hear from a College Park tipster claiming to be familiar with the residences of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (paper wealth: $2 billion) and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim (estimated wealth: $64 million). Public records confirm that Karim lives in the two-by-twelve-block Palo Alto neighbohood, adjacent to Stanford University; records indicate Zuckerberg has for months occupied property nearby, albeit in the form of Facebook's new headquarters, a short walk away from Karim.

But Zuckerberg is now a neighbor in a much more real sense, according to our tipster, renting a home right next door to Karim (as in side by side) on the same street. The brief commute would be one good reason for living there. Another: It looks like a leafy, laid back area, according to the ample photographs of the street on Google Maps. Based on Karim's address this is the block they share:

Why are Zuckerberg's neighbors ratting out his address? His employees are taking up the parking, and, we're told, residents complain that the fast-growing company is not providing enough spots (they're apparently not mollified by a proposal to begin requiring residential permits in some areas). You should probably get on that, Mark; these people know where you live.

In the meantime, local residents are missing the real outrage: That, in their 'hood, even insanely wealthy startup founders live in what most American suburbanites would consider modest pads.

This particular incident is imbued with racial overtones and, as such, is likely to be something of a YouTube sensation. According to a translation posted on YouTube, the Chinese woman said the fight started when she asked to sit next to the other woman, who is African American, and was rebuffed. "She has no heart, always bullying chinese people," the woman reportedly says. YouTube commenters are discussing the matter in their typical nuanced, racially sensitive manner (i.e. being flaming bigots, repeatedly).

The racial angle aside, the incident is yet another example of how you really can't freak out on mass transit or on the streets or in airports any more:

• Have a tantrum because you missed your flight? You may well be remembered as the Cathay Pacific airport lady, for the rest of your whiny life.
  
• Flash your dick on the subway? There's an app for taking a picture of that.
  
• Shove a guy off his bicycle, while he's in motion? Someone will film it, and you'll have to pay.

People have viewed more than 500,000 times Yazdani's 2007 daredevil stunt, in which he spray paints an LA freeway overpass from a narrow ledge. The viewers included sheriff's transit investigators, who nailed Yazdani for 32 felony vandalism counts out of hundreds in which they came to suspect him, according to the LA Times. He originally got off with time served, probation and graffiti removal duty, but he violated his probation this summer with more tagging, so now he's been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, thanks to his YouTube-enabled criminal record.

YouTube has emerged as the medium of choice for our nation's most self-destructively brazen criminals and miscreants. It's an amazingly powerful way to get in trouble with the law! In addition to having a buddy upload your tagging exploits, you can...

• ...be a cop and shove a rider off his bike for no good reason, on YouTube;
  
• ...be a bigshot tech executive who snorts cocaine, on YouTube;
• ...beat a cheerleader unconscious, on YouTube;
• ...work for Domino's and do disgusting things with food, in their kitchen, on YouTube. (This one won't necessarily land you in jail, it's just a bonus item for those who prefer national infamy to prison time.)

It's important to note that these are only the most self promotional of wrongdoers, not the worst. Everyone knows that the absolute worst criminals stick to Craigslist and Facebook.

ASCAP licenses the performance rights for music, collecting royalties for its songwriter members when their songs are played in certain contexts.

Those contexts now include a YouTube video embedded on your blog or website, assuming your site is not "purely" non-commercial and is deemed large enough by ASCAP. The group just sent a collection letter to internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis (pictured) for YouTube videos embedded on his Mahalo reference site. Based on what the group told Valleywag, other startups should be worried:

ASCAP does not offer licenses to – or require licenses from – those who simply make their personal blogs available on purely noncommercial Web sites. Mahalo.com is a larger venture than simply a personal blog, and therefore ASCAP is engaged in discussions with Mr. Calacanis concerning the use of ASCAP members' music on the site.

ASCAP sent collection letters to other website owners in the spring; YouTube told recipients to refer the group back to YouTube. But then a judge ruled Google owed ASCAP $1.6 million while a court fight between the two sides over licensing drags on. At some point, website owners are going to start wondering how much longer Google will offer to handle all the legal complaints over YouTube embeds — and just how many songs they've embedded over the years and now owe royalties on.

(Pic: by David Sifry)

According to The Independent, here's the conflict: YouTube is expected to take in around $240 million in revenue from advertising this year. The problem is that this sum doesn't come close to covering the site's operating costs. Every minute of the day there are over 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube and the costs involved with maintaining servers, bandwidth, software, etc, is astronomical, so much so that if it weren't for YouTube's "multinational sugar daddy," Google, supporting it and willing to bleed money to hold on to it as a property, YouTube would already be dead.

So whose fault is this? Yours! And mine, of course. Because we've become a bunch of spoiled little brats who refuse to pay for any content online, nor do we want to be bothered with stupid advertisements getting all up in grills during our web surfing.

We are uninterested, verging on contemptuous, of the marketing strategies that were supposed to pay for us to enjoy online services for free. We've become totally unwilling to pay for them directly, either; we simply figure that someone, somehow, will pick up the tab.

Now, let's all pause right here and take a second to look at ourselves in the mirror after reading that passage. You feeling slightly guilty? No? Me neither. Well maybe a little. But still, we're not that bad when it comes to tolerating online advertising, are we?

The fact that most people over the age of 30 doubt that online businesses can survive by offering free services is irrelevant, because most people under the age of 30 are demanding them. On messageboards and forums across the internet you can see them calling for record companies, film studios, newspapers and television channels to come up with a solution that will extend their entertainment utopia, and quick; if they don't, well, they'll find a way around it. And while many see this as a selfish, unrealistic attitude, the onus is on businesses to get themselves out of this mess because the digital medium exercises unstoppable power.

So is our little utopia going to hell? Maybe!

The news regarding YouTube's losses have caused such consternation because people simply can't believe that the third-most-popular website on the web is unable to stand alone and turn a profit. And suddenly, the magical web, whose supposed capacity to revolutionise business has attracted and continues to attract waves of ambitious entrepreneurs, may slowly be revealing itself as an arena in which only a few large companies can survive.

So what does the future of the internet look like?

Either produce something that people are willing to pay for, or come up with an idea for a free service that's so ingenious that a benevolent multinational is willing to take it off your hands.

Look, can we really help it if we demand everything online be free and will stop at nothing to get what we want for free even when it's not intended to be free? After all, the editor of Wired stole material to write a book about how all content should be free! Is there really anything more to say?

But seriously, do we agree with everything in The Independent's article? Absolutely not! Do we believe that YouTube's financial struggles are a bellwether for a widespread failing of the net in general? Absolutely not! At various points the article reads like little more than a rehashing of many of the same arguments that the old media dinosaurs having been braying endlessly over the last few years, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't provoke me to stop and think, and for that reason you should go and read the entire piece for yourself and form your own opinion. And please feel free to share them in the comments below.

How Can YouTube Survive? [Independent]

It's no secret that YouTube needs to make money; its annual losses have been estimated at between $175 million and $471 million. Meanwhile, Hulu may have already matched the ad revenue of YouTube, which is twice Hulu's age, thanks to old-media-friendly content.

The more completely Google breaks with YouTube's past, the easier it will be for CEO Eric Schmidt to cozy up to the movie and TV studios from his new house in Southern California. Who knows, the Hollywood honchos might even forget they once sued the guy.

[To the tune of "American Pie"]

Bye, bye those big upfront buys
Pitched my client who was pliant
But the pitch didn't fly
And old ad boys were drinking martinis dry
Singing "Tech has taken us for a ride"
"Algorithms got me cross-eyed"

[Related]

You can find more of Stephen's work here.

This couple, through their actions and their attitudes at the launch party, conveyed the passion of Internet Week 2009. It took place at the Puck Building. Lauren is a dancer (jazzy) and her friend self-ID'd as a "hot dog vendor." So, hot dog guy and Lauren, thank you for your passions. May they never ever lead you ... INTO THE DEN OF THE HYENA!

I was like, "Hey dude, who are you?" and he was like "I'm David-Michael Davies," and I was like, "Oh, so what does that mean exactly?" and he was like "I'm the chairman of Internet Week," and I was like "Oh yeah? I'm the emperor of Internet Decade, so there," and then he was like "Oh yeah, well, my tie is actually a detachable bong."

Disclaimers:
(1) He is David-Michael Davies.
(2) He is the chairman of Internet Week.
(3) The above dialog did not happen, technically.
(4) His tie was a gift from his wife and it was hype.
(5) Apparently one of the guests left their Ark of the Covenant on the dance floor.

This was a sad trend. Interpeople handing out business cards with job titles that no longer attach to them, or, more troubling, from media entities that got kind of dead recently. Take the above subject, Sarah Scully — an avid reader of Gawker, incidentally — who handed me her card. Independent Film Channel. Producer & political correspondent for IFC news. But now, not so much. Oh well, she seemed unruffled ohhhhhhh snap.

Meanwhile, loitering in the background, Robert Stepanek, a previously documented composer of rap operas.

The fluorescing gentleman in the plaid shirt, Rogier Vijverberg, was in town for the Interfests with his colleagues from the ad agency Super Heroes. His colleagues and the agency are Dutch. I was like, "So are your beers."

After our exchange of pleasantries, Rogier and his pals sauntered over to the dance floor to check out the Ark of the Covenant. I wanted to warn them about staring into it.

Andrea Chalupa, with the be-flowered dress, yes, speaking of enterprises that died, worked for Portfolio and still had those biz cards. She is now gainfully employed by America Online. Yo, AOL! How about giving your employees some business cards?? Sheesh.

Chutzpah walked in the door, and she was wearing black clothes. This woman is holding up tree-media, a zine-poster thing called Show Paper. It is a listing of all-ages shows in the city, and it's on newsprint.

Oh, and it has horoscopes too. Let's see what's up for Taurus-branded motherfuckers: "You can't run away from your problems. You could if they had a knife but in most instances your problems have a gun and can fly."

Wow. Bummer.

The DJ scratched music, and the video was synched up to the scratching too. Neato!

This photograph was taken about one second after the Dutch advertising people lifted the top off the Ark of the Covenant and about 4 seconds before their faces melted off.

I was like, "I told you so."

Calling all agents, calling all agents. Report! Report!

Eventually the committee of Internets was like, "Enough with the melting faces already," and took appropriate counter-measures.

Arks of the Covenant: Not to be fucked with. Ever.

If you're wondering what Yahoo Video is, don't blame yourself. Yahoo's video site, the descendant of the foolhardy $5.7 billion acquisition of Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com in 2000, is a grab-bag of funny cat videos, sports and news clips, and third-rate Web originals.

Yahoo Video has struggled to compete with YouTube's reputation as an all-in-one destination and Hulu's clearly curated collection of primetime entertainment. Its prehistoric video technology and Dallas operations center, a legacy of the Broadcast.com deal, has meant that it costs Yahoo more to serve up a video than Google. It hasn't helped that the video group has had a revolving door of leadership. Onetime Yahoo Music chief Ian Rogers ran it briefly before leaving for a startup last year, handing it over to Yahoo Media chief Scott Moore, who promptly split for Microsoft.

Yahoo has also shuttered Jumpcut, its user-generated video site, in favor of Flickr, which now hosts what it calls "long photos" — mostly personal clips taken on digital cameras. Cuban, the founder of Broadcast.com, predicted that most videos on the Internet would be home movies. Shame he didn't tell Yahoo that before he sold it a $5.7 billion bag of goods.

Update: A tipster at Yahoo points out that Broadcast.com wasn't the only bad investment Yahoo made in video. More recently, its $200 million purchase of Maven Networks went sour:

I'm not sure if any tech news blogs have carried this info but there has been a significant shift in Yahoo! video strategy. For the past month or so, and last week in particular the entire Y! video product management team and key engineers have either moved on, resigned, or let go. For a long time the team has been pushing the management to take on a more "Hulu-like" or premium content approach but with portfolio rationalization and internal politics, the key guys pushing for this change have been moved out. Last year Yahoo! spent almost $200 M purchasing white label publishing company - Maven, that strategy is also out of the door, video is now in a sad state in Yahoo! abandoned and in maintainence mode. The sad part is that folks currently leading the video charge and the ones with poor vision, execution capability, and responsible for putting the company $200M in the hole! Yahoo! continues to amaze me. Hulu, YouTube, and others will now be leaders in video monetization.

The New York Times explores the problem: Free websites like MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook easily find followings overseas, but advertisers don't want those users. About half the world's Internet users are too poor to draw commercial interest.

Meanwhile, those users cost the same amount of money to serve as more lucrative targets in developed economies. The Times argues, incorrectly, that they cost more to serve. The real problem is that it's not worth it for companies to build datacenters close to their overseas users — so they leave them with balky videos and slow-loading photographs. MySpace is even trialing a low-bandwidth version of its profile pages in India. Veoh, an online-video startup, has gone as far as cutting off its site to users in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Digg is rethinking plans to acquire foreign knockoffs of its site. Analysts believe Google's YouTube is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, in part because it's serving up worthless lip-synch videos to worthless audiences around the world.

The irony here: The same financiers who are balking at paying for third-worlders' bandwidth bills encouraged this international growth. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch famously pushed Chris DeWolfe, MySpace's recently fired CEO, to expand the site to 15 countries a year after buying it. Venture capitalists encouraged startups to grow all over the world, lest overseas copycats get entrenched in their home markets.

Only now are the moneymen realizing that not all eyeballs are created equal, at least when they're in advertisers' sights. In the meantime, the global village had one hell of a show. We hope they enjoyed the kitty pictures while they lasted.

(Photo via SAEP)

The search giant is doing its best to stanch large bandwidth losses at its video site ($470 million says Credit Suisse, though Google disputes that). It is thinking about charging for some videos, CEO Eric Schmidt told the New York Times, while the Wall Street Journal reports the company is exploring a deal to offer some videos exclusively to Time Warner cable subscribers.

The two networks are fighting over who gets a deal for ABC shows. The Journal reports Hulu, which now carries NBC and Fox, is the likely winner.

In the meantime, YouTube is offering TV shows like Married with Children and movies like Carrie here, thanks to new deals with studios like Lions Gate, MGM and Sony.

Also in the meantime, pretty much everyone will continue watching Hulu, with its clean interface, crisp-looking video and viewer-friendly commercial options. And the News Corp.-NBC Universal joint venture will continue to have the best shot at turning a profit where the supposed Web geniuses at Google have failed.

See how many of the following classic moments you can spot in this clip:

"All I can think of is the guy in the library."

Ron Leingang, "Game-Play Counselor"

Howard Phillips, "Fun Club President"

"I had trouble with Lincoln Logs! (Sigh). Kids and fantasy."

[via Mental Floss]

Numa Numa: 27.28 million hits now. Wowzers. If you are Gary Brolsma, the Numa Numa guy, you can only go two ways: fight your destiny and retreat into yourself—which would exact a high social cost, but let you retain your fundamental humanity—or embrace it and pimp it as much as possible. Gary's chosen option #2, as you can see, because here he is with that Geico gecko, going 'viral' and generally being a one-trick pony like some Harlem Globetrotter who would really love to tell the kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, but all they want to see is that half-court trick shot. The point is, never ever do anything popular on the internet, or you can kiss your ass goodbye.

The effort, codenamed "Vevo" according to the Wall Street Journal, would involve a new showcase for music videos on YouTube, with the notion of commanding higher advertising rates. Right now, YouTube makes pennies per view — if it's lucky. Most of YouTube's bandwidth-consuming video funhouse goes unburdened with revenue.

In December, Warner abruptly withdrew its music videos from Google. Most people assumed Warner was throwing another typical record-label fit and being unreasonable. The word from the Googleplex, though, is that the Warner deal was a victim of CFO Patrick Pichette's cost-cutting crusade. In YouTube's early days, the video site had struck a deal, then hailed as groundbreaking, to pay Warner to play copies of its music videos uploaded by users and thereby avoid a massive copyright-infringement suit. But that deal was rather richer for Warner than for YouTube. Google executive Jonathan Rosenberg explained the move on a recent conference call with analysts:

... we'd love to work with Warner. But I think we're going to continue to do what we've been doing; try to continue to make mutually beneficial deals and then try to do some of the things like we talked about on the earlier call with respect to better monetizing YouTube ...

In other words, Google just doesn't make enough off of videos to justify the rates it's been paying Warner and the other labels.

Did Warner walk, or did Google dump it? It's still not clear. What is clear: There's not enough money in online music videos to go around. Google and Universal are negotiating a deal in the hopes that there will be.

But what if there's not? In the '80s, teenagers stared slackjawed at MTV, because there simply wasn't anything else like it on the air. But now, thanks largely to YouTube, there's a surfeit of video everywhere you go. And traditional three-minute music videos, while they satisfied an '80s attention span, are too long for the YouTube generation, which likes its clips a minute or less. (A classic video like Take On Me seems epic now.) Perhaps the record labels should count themselves lucky if they get a link to iTunes, let alone a revenue share — and that anyone still wants their music videos at all.

Thomas Gensemer. Gensemer joined Blue State Digital, a Boston-centered political consultancy founded by veterans on Howard Dean's Internet-powered presidential campaign, in 2005. He'd previously worked as a venture capitalist who backed Blogger and Meetup.com, among others. He's currently touring in Britain trying to drum up business for a newly opened office as "Obama's digital guru."
How much credit does he deserve? "Campaign insiders suggest privately that Blue State has so impressed Obama that, if he wins in November, the company could be in the unique position to play a role inside the White House," BusinessWeek wrote last June. That hasn't happened — which may explain why Gensemer has moved on to London.

Jascha Franklin-Hodge. Blue State's cofounder and CTO, Franklin-Hodge, a Boston computer programmer, led the heavy lifting on my.barackobama.com and change.gov, Obama's transition website.
How much credit does he deserve? The technology Blue State developed, including software which distributed lists of voters for volunteers to call, was key to Obama's operation. Franklin-Hodge deserves a large share of the credit, but as a programmer, he's unlikely to grab it.

Joe Rospars. Another Blue State cofounder and veteran of the Dean campaign who embedded himself in the Obama organization as new media director. Portfolio dubbed him "Obama's tech guru." He served as a spokesblogger and argued that content, not technology, was key to Obama's victory.
How much credit does he deserve? Pop quiz: Can you recall any of Obama's blog entries?

Chris Hughes. The New York Times called Hughes the "Facebooker who friended Obama." A cofounder of the social network who served as Facebook's spokesman in its early days, Hughes left the company in 2007 to join the Obama campaign as its director of online organizing. Hughes operated the tools Blue State built to set up local networks of fundraisers and get-out-the-vote efforts.
How much credit does he deserve? A lot, according to Obama, who told the Times:

One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up. And there's no more powerful tool for grass-roots organizing than the Internet.

Hughes was in D.C. for the inauguration, attending Google's inaugural ball, but hasn't gotten — or taken — a job with the administration yet. When we asked about Hughes' role a couple of weeks ago, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro cryptically said, "Nothing for you on that at this time."

Scott Goodstein. A D.C. campaign manager whom the L.A. Times dubbed "Obama's text-message guru." He also built Obama's presence on external social networks, including Facebook and MySpace.
How much credit does he deserve? Obama's Facebook presence had 3 million followers by the end of the campaign. His team also developed Obama's iPhone app. But Obama's attempt to announce his vice-presidential pick via text message got scooped by old media.

Arun Chaudhary. Obama's director of field video production and "video guru" won the "YouTube primary" for Obama, according to Business Insider.
How much credit does he deserve? Obama is now delivering fireside chats on an official YouTube channel — but does anyone really buy the idea that Obama won the election on YouTube?

Joe Trippi. Howard Dean's campaign manager, credited with inventing the modern practice of Internet campaigning.
How much credit does he deserve? In theory? All of it, since the Dean campaign led directly to the founding of Blue State Digital and inspired the operation of Obama's online efforts. In practice? None, since he worked for John Edwards' doomed campaign in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Katie Stanton. A Googler who launched Google Finance before spearheading Google Moderator, an online voting tool that the incoming Obama administration used on Change.gov.
How much credit does she deserve? None, since she had no involvement in the campaign. But she's the one who actually got a cool Internet job in the White House as Obama's "director of citizen engagement."

(Photos via Phorecast, NetSquared, AP, Boston Globe, >Washington Post, and peanuggets)

As bad as the commercial (which stars two Microsoft scientists who are, surprisingly, not trained actors) is, the product advertised is even worse. You sing, and it automatically creates a tinny, childish background track that would get bottles hurled at you in any open mic in America. It's all part of Bill Gates' plan to destroy cool things—in this case, music—with computers, resulting in global nerd domination. The Times points out that the ultimate proof of this can be found in all the YouTube videos by brave pioneers who fed classic songs into Songsmith and taped the results. What monster could promote something such as this?:

On New Year's Day, after a fight on a BART train, police pulled Oscar Grant and others off the train at the Fruitvale station near Oakland's airport. Witnesses with cell phones and videocameras captured Johannes Mehserle, a police officer for the BART rail system, in the act of shooting Grant. A local TV station ran one of these clips Sunday. But Grant's death wasn't widely reported until cameraphone footage was posted until Tuesday, sparking protests in downtown Oakland Wednesday night which turned into a riot.

The reason why is clear: Another death by cop in America's inner cities, rendered in bloodless black-and-white text, would go unremarked by readers. But the video, which shows Mehserle, seemingly unprompted, reaching for his gun and shooting Grant, is chilling. Mehserle resigned Wednesday.

BART officials first claimed there was no surveillance tape — then said they'd discovered one that didn't show the shooting incident. Even that evidence was impounded as part of the investigation, leaving the witnesses' YouTube clips as the only record.

Was Mehserle reaching for his Taser, as some suggest? We still don't know that and other key facts.. A vibrant local news industry might have done more on the story before the Internet made it big news. But Oakland, which has one local paper, the Oakland Tribune, run by a chain known for cost-cutting, is emblematic of the increasingly wide swathes of America which go uncovered by proper journalism.

It's easy to celebrate mediarogue, the YouTube poster who some might call a "citizen journalist." But isn't it disturbing to think that, as easily as it became a national scandal, Grant's shooting might well have disappeared into the morass of mind-numbing clips offered on Google's online-video schlock factory — a death unnoted by our fickle, impatient minds?

Everything that makes YouTube a time-wasting creative desert is just fodder for Gripp's brilliant mind. Take "Young Girl Talking About Herself," which remixes clips of well, exactly that, paired with lyrics of a frenetic energy that reminds me of They Might Be Giants or Weird Al Yankovic.

"If this catchy tune were made into a real 3 minute song I'd download it," one commenter writes in a YouTube comment. But that misunderstands Gripp's genius. If he were just copying Yankovic's schtick, he'd do classic three-minute rock songs about the Internet, designed for radio play; or he'd just carelessly slap a bunch of viral-video references into a song, like Weezer.

How backwards! Three minutes might be right for archaic formats like the LP, but it's wrong for the Web. Most of Gripp's video-mashup songs are one minute or less in length — exactly right for the YouTube attention span. The joke doesn't get played out. It's over before you know it, and leaves you hungry for more — click, click, click. But enough words. Behold the brilliance of Parry Gripp!

"Shopping Penguin"

"Dramatic Chipmunk Hey"

"Spaghetti Cat (I Weep for You)"

"Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)"

"Cat Flushing a Toilet Music Video"

"This Is My Ringtone"

"Robot Hamster"

"Puppy Time"

"Do You Like Waffles?"