Take me to this post »»»
Today the Global Language Monitor announced the 1 millionth English word and the word is… (ta dah)… Web 2.0!
Web 2.0?? Is that even a word? And didn’t Web 2.0 suffer a horrible, gruesome death not too long ago?
The Global Language Monitor claims that 14.7 new words are added to the English language each day and Jai Ho! and slumdog, both popularized by the movie Slumdog Millionaire, just missed being the millionth words.
Linguists, everywhere, are crying foul, that there is no way to track exactly what words are added to English.. that this is purely a publicity stunt.
What do you guys think?
Here is an article over at MSNBC. And you can follow the Global Language Monitor on Twitter.
Take me to this post »»»
Here is an update from Cannes.. it’s been really amazing and I have lots of tweets about it. From dancing on Paul Allen’s “Octopus” Yacht that is so big it has TWO helicopters on it, to hanging with a vampire on our yacht, dancing on another night with Quentin Tarantino and me stealing his socks as shoes are not allowed on the yacht….
Needless to say, everyone dances until about 5-7 in the morning here during the Cannes Film Festival, so I have not been able to snag anyone to ask them about their movies! But, I’m still trying!
Here is a link to a blog post about some of the good times we have been having on the “Pure One”. (The pics are “squeezed” on that site, so I included them here in their proper perspective).
Oh.. and here are some of the pics from my Twitpic stream… I’ll leave it up to you to try to figure out what is what! 
I’ll report more later!
Marina
Take me to this post »»»
I am off to the Cannes Film Festival, which was supposed to be a vacation of sorts but, being the work-a-holic that I am, I decided to see if I could shoot some interesting videos while there.
Friends of mine will have this yacht docked in Cannes:
I thought it would be fun to perhaps interview some celebrities on this yacht.
The list of movies that will be showing at Cannes is below, along with the list of people associated with the movies.
If you can think of some interesting questions to ask any of them, please write them in the comments below, as they will help me conduct a better interview!
Here is the list of top movies:
BROKEN EMBRACES – Penelope Cruz, Angela Molina, Blanca Portillo and director Pedro Almodovar
TAKING WOODSTOCK – Liev Schreiber, Emily Hirsch, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Paul Dano, Eugene Levy, Kelli Garner and director Ang Lee
AGORA – Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Rupert Evans and director Alejandro Amenabar
AND SOON THE DARKNESS – Amber Heard, Odette Yustman and Karl Urban
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Samuel Jackson, Mike Myers and director Quentin Tarantino
DRAG ME TO HELL – Justin Long, Alison Lohman and director Sam Raimi
This should be fun! I’ve never been to Cannes, but I hear that it is an amazing place! I am so excited! I promise to Twitter everything! And please think of some interesting questions for me to ask.
Take me to this post »»»
Follow @hotforwords on Twitter to enter into a drawing to have lunch with Marina Orlova (that’s me ) at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. I’ll even fly you to me and back if you live in the United States, Alaska or Hawaii!
All you have to do is follow me on Twitter and one of my followers will be chosen at random. So hurry up and follow me, I’m hungry!
Click here to go to my Twitter page and then select FOLLOW.
RULES: No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win this lunch-date. You must be 18 years or older to win the lunch and airline ticket. I will purchase you a round-trip airline ticket from anywhere in the domestic United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. This is for a lunch date (I’ll pick up the tab) and air-fare only. I’ll also pick 10 additional winners for a 2nd place prize of a personally signed pic of me praising you for being such a great student, suitable for framing and making your girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, future-girlfriend, wife, ex-wife or future ex-wife jealous! Drawing will occur on a random date with the lunch date occurring a minimum of 2 weeks from then. In the event that the Grand Prize Winner does not qualify, the Grand Prize will go to one of the remaining 10 second place winners, chosen randomly.
Take me to this post »»»
I started to write this as a response to James in the comments section when it got really long and I felt that it could actually make for an interesting post where we can all respond.
James mentioned this video, which is very interesting.
I saw the video and I think it has some very valid points.. I even subscribed to their mailing list to see what else they have to say. But I don’t agree with all that they are saying and I explain why later in this post.
“POPULAR”
I’m not happy with the change to “popular” from “most viewed” at YouTube as I don’t feel that “popular” accurately reflects what people are watching on YouTube. It’s too heavily weighted in certain areas, such as, if a video has a large percentage of its views coming from a website outside of YouTube it will appear on the #1 “popular” page even with only 2,000 views. Plus, if a phrase is searched for, then those videos appear all over the “popular” as well.. that’s how we ended up with every single video yesterday being that singer from Britain’s Got Talent! That women is amazing, but I didn’t need to see her videos 40 times on YouTube!
So I think “popular” still does not do what’s it’s supposed to do, yet, and that’s why it keeps changing. YouTube wants to give lesser known creators of content more of a chance to be seen on YouTube and that’s why the change to “popular”.. but the algorithm is just not there yet.
RATINGS PHASED OUT
I’m also not happy with the phasing out of ratings. One day ratings are there, the next day, they are not. Ratings are very useful as a way to quickly browse through videos to determine which videos to avoid. The problems with ratings is that not only are BAD videos rated low, but videos that are advertisements are ALWAYS rated low as well… and as a result, people are avoiding watching those videos. So YouTube removed ratings from the lists. I don’t think this change is good, and I think they will eventually bring them back.
So I agree with the video in those respects.
“YOUTUBE IS BECOMING THEMTUBE”
But, I don’t agree with this sentiment, and let me explain why.
The people who created YouTube are not stupid and neither are the people at Google. They know that YouTube is popular BECAUSE OF THE USER-GENERATED CONTENT!
But YouTube is not able to monetize the user-generated content like they NEED TO.
ADVERTISERS ARE AFRAID OF USER-GENERATED CONTENT
Advertisers, for the large part, are still afraid to advertise on user-generated content. YouTube is frustrated with that and they are having to adapt until advertisers wake up and realize that they CAN advertise on user-generated content. People will not hold an advertiser liable if its ad appears on a video that happens to be very controversial! I mean, seriously, when is the last time you got mad at a car company because its ad appeared next to a video that you didn’t like? If you’re like me, the answer is NEVER.
BUT ADVERTISERS ARE AFRAID OF THAT SITUATION! And that’s why YouTube is having to adapt to make advertisers comfortable with advertising on the website. How can they do that when advertisers are afraid of user-generated content? Borrow a page from Hulu! Provide professionally produced content that once appeared on Television that advertisers will be more than happy to advertise on!
As I stated in an earlier post, it’s estimated that YouTube costs about $2 million dollars a day to run, but they are only bringing in between $250k – 650k a day.. so they are losing $1.4 – 1.65 million dollars EVERY SINGLE DAY!
No company can exist forever losing that kind of money!
Hulu serves up 88 million video views a month and is poised to make $100 million this year. YouTube serves up 4.2 BILLION videos a month and is only poised to make $300-500 million this year. Hulu is making 1/3 of the money YouTube is making with 2% of the traffic!!!
So, yes.. YouTube looked at Hulu.com and decided to see if they could make some of that “Hulu” money.
USER-GENERATED CONTENT CAN COEXIST WITH PROFESSIONAL CONTENT
How does Hulu make so much money? By regurgitation TV shows and putting them online. Advertisers pay BIG bucks to advertise on those shows and Hulu is very happy hauling the big bags of money to the bank each day.
Hulu is owned by NBC and Fox.. so other networks don’t necessarily want to put their shows on that website and put money in their competitors’ pockets. Why not put their shows on the most heavily trafficked video website on the planet, YouTube?
And that’s what’s happening here.
PROFESSIONALLY PRODUCED CONTENT ON YOUTUBE IS SUBSIDIZING ALL OF THE USER-GENERATED CONTENT ON THE SITE.
Or, at least, that is the plan.
YouTube is hoping that they can monetize the “safe” stuff, the TV shows, like what Hulu does.. and this money will pay for all the user-generated content that YouTube is not able to monetize.
Eventually, over time, the advertisers will hopefully get comfortable with some of the user-generated content and start advertising on that as well… and then, finally, advertisers will realize that users don’t attach advertisers to user-generated content and they will advertise on all the content.
BE OPTIMISTIC
So as far as I’m concerned, I want YouTube to stick around and if they need to bring in some TV shows to help fund the thing? That’s fine by me! I know that user-generated content is THE REASON why YouTube is successful, and the people at YouTube and Google know that as well.
It’s fun to be a conspiracy theorist at times.. and to think that all companies are bad and evil.. but that kind of thinking also stops you from pursuing your dreams. If the whole world is corrupt, then why bother, right?
I didn’t think that way two years ago when I set out to create my channel, and I don’t think that way today. I think these changes at YouTube are designed to help new channels be seen and to help YouTube pay the bills. YouTube is a company of people just like you and me. These people want to see the site succeed and they will fight hand over fist (I wonder where that expression came from?) to see that creators of content, like some of you and I, will be able to continue to do what we do, and get paid for it as well!
So, that’s my perception of the changes at YouTube. Some of the changes are still a work in progress, but overall, I think the changes are great! After reading my thoughts, what do you guys now think?
Take me to this post »»»
From Slashdot: (Read the article here.)
“The average visitor to YouTube is costing Google between one and two dollars, according to new research that shows Google losing up to $1.65 million per day on the video site.
More than two years after Google acquired YouTube, income from premium offers and other revenue generators don’t offset YouTube’s expenses of content acquisition, bandwidth, and storage.
YouTube is expected to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009, costing Google up to $2,064,054 a day, or $753 million annualized. Revenue projections for YouTube fall between $90 million and $240 million.
“Maybe this is in part because, as Al writes,“Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence.”
—————-
This is why you will probably see changes happening to YouTube that we mentioned earlier. – Marina
pennsyltucky9 on 
Chemikal on 
Capman911 on 
greatestpotential on 
leonard on 
Recent Comments