YouTube New Ideas Week: Is YouTube For Kids Like Totlol?

YouTube invited TechCrunch' Jason Kincaid to their offices to show what they're working on and how they roll out the new products during what is called "New Ideas Week." There are two new creations of note: one called "YouTube for Kids" and the other for the kind of "Qik-like streaming" I did at CES 2011, except that I actually used Qik.com.

But "YouTube For Kids" reopens a really thorny issue that, when re-consumed, causes one to wonder why YouTube would re-open a matter in such a way as to run the risk of placing it in a bad light. As a YouTube Partner, I'm not comfy about what I'm about to present. Blogging about this is not fun, but it's got to be done, and now.

The Brief Story Of Totlol

The December 29th 2009 TechCrunch featured a blog post by Erick Schonfeld called "The Sad Tale Of Totlol And How YouTube's Changing TOS Made It Hard To Make A Buck."

Totlol was a platform created by Developer and Entrepreneur Ron Ilan, that consists of videos from YouTube that were created by parents for kids. Cool, except that Ron created Totlol using YouTube's API (Application Program Interface), and Erick reports that Google "just happened" to change YouTube's Terms of Service (TOS) to prohibit the creation of something like Totlol or any system using its API for commercial use on the same day that YouTube featured Totlol on it's Google Code widget.

In other words, Google stepped in at the time and said, "OK, now no one can make something that makes money using our product that we didn't create ourselves." On the face of it, that would seem to not impact Totlol, which was first created in 2008. Right?

Well, not exactly. The change in the YouTube TOS hurt Ron's ability to make money because he could not place ads on Totlol anymore. He asked for permission from YouTube, but got no response at first.

Then a YouTube rep did reach out to Ron in June of 2009, and tried to understand how to avoid such a situation in the future as well as "What types of business models would we need to support in order to make this worth a developer’s while?," but nothing benefiting Ron came of the meeting.

In an account that is no longer available online, even in its cached version, Ron explains what he thinks was "up" at Google, according to TechCrunch:

When the YouTube API team saw Totlol they liked it. At about the same time someone else at Google saw it, realized the potential it, and - or similar implementations may have, and initiated a ToS modification. An instruction was given to delay public acknowledgement of Totlol until the modified ToS where published. Later an instruction was given to avoid public acknowledgement at all.

Now, Ron's site is down, as is any indication of criticism of YouTube, and the one bit of evidence that he created Totlol is on his Linkedin Page, which reads:

Founder / Creator
Totlol
(Internet industry)
February 2008 — September 2010 (2 years 8 months)
Totlol was an award winning, community-moderated Video Website designed for kids and powered by YouTube.

- Sole developer.
- Identified the market opportunity, defined product use cases, architecture and UI. Preformed several feedback and usability driven upgrade cycles.
- Features included access to 10s of thousands of videos, extensive personalization, an Age Optimizer for content and multiple Age Optimized Interfaces. Web application was available in custom mobile versions for iPhone and iPad.
- Drove product marketing and positioning as first website of its kind and leader of the segment. Website been featured in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today.
- Distinction and awards: Google Code Featured Project, Apple Featured Web App, PC Magazine Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites, Webby Awards Official Honoree.
- Working environment: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Zend Framework, YouTube Data API, Google Data API OAuth, JS, HTML/CSS and YouTube Chromeless Player.

Judging by the timing of things, where he shut down September of 2010, perhaps some kind of settlement was reached between Ron and Google / YouTube. One hope's so. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports that "YouTube For Kids" is...

"a fully revamped version of YouTube designed specifically with children in mind. Heckmann says that children tend to use YouTube differently than adults, and obviously there is content on the site that kids shouldn’t be exposed to. What’s worse, sometimes kids stumble across this content accidentally because of the way the site’s automated suggestions work.

To remedy this, YouTube is building a version of the site that’s been reworked to have absolutely no text, save for the YouTube logo. Videos that do appear will be based off of whitelists, so there won’t be any chance of accidentally stumbling across something unsavory or scary. At this point it sounds like the project still has a ways to go (it was initially created during a New Ideas week last summer), but it’s on the way."

One clue to the current relationship between Ron and YouTube comes from his Twitter Page @ronilan. By the looks of tweets, he's got a cordial (ie: non-flaming and re-tweeting) Twitter relationship with YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and Project Engineer Hunter Walk, who's an all-around good guy, so by appearances it seems that Ron walked away happy, the case was closed, and YouTube's working on something based on what Ron developed.

I really hope I'm correct.

Stay tuned.

Soluto CEO Tomir Dvir Talks Startup, Has Fun At The Crunchies

Soluto's a company you've probably not known of until now. It started as an idea by Tomir Dvir. who's now its CEO, and his business partner and with a boffo presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 New York City, rapidly gained fans and funders. Now, with over 1 million users in less than a year, the Israel-based company is on its way toward Tech startdom.

(What's interesting is I met Tomir and his people over lunch at Tech Crunch Disrupt, and before their Startup Battlefield presentation.  It's interesting, and yet a standard habit if you're involved in the Tech Community in the Bay Area in some way, to meet a group of people - or be involved with that group - who are unknown but have a good product idea and company around it, then watch them "hit the match stick," where that company gains in popularity, then funding, then growth.  Such is the path Soluto's on.)

You use Soluto to get ideas on how to solve problems with your PC. Tomir says the idea was to access the brains of "the Geeks" as he says, to help solve anyone's problem via crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing is giving or "outsourcing" a task usually done by one person to a group of people. The Internet provides a great foundation for crowdsourcing efforts, and Soluto's platform accesses its user base to help a person deal with their computer problem. PC World reports that Soluto actually shortens PC boot times.

I caught up with Tomir at The 2011 Crunchies, the annual Tech awards show, where, as much as Tomir's a business person, he's also a lot of fun to hang out with and talk to. A runner up at The Crunchies, Tomir said "It's like the Oscars, but more fun."

And part of the fun was the party at The Exploratorium, which provided a great backdrop to talk about his company.

On the subject of Soluto's growth, he said "It's been amazing. We passed a million downloads already. TechCrunch Disrupt was the kick start for that." And now with investor backing, Soluto has a small staff that handles its day to day operations and issues.

Soluto Coming To Mac, Android

Right now, Soluto's only for the PC and not the Mac because the PC "represents 90 percent" of the computer market, he says. But, eventually Soluto will expand to include the Apple MacBook, and he specifically mentioned the Android mobile platform, as well.  

Yes, the iPhone OS too.

Stay tuned.  

Jersey Shore Season 3 Episode 5: Abusive Relationships

Jersey Shore picks up from last week with JWoww and Snooki at JWOww's place getting all her belongings. Ryder shows up at the house at Seaside and Vinny coincidently answers the door - remember now, those two smushed and Snooki walked in.

The group is planning to celebrate Ryder's birthday.

The title of the episode is "PUNCH DRUNK LOVE."

Things go insane from here - extremely insane. There's so much to comment on.

Sammi gets upset with Ronnie talking to a girl at the club, which - although having no experience with those types of clubs, why would a boyfriend be chatting with another girl in the first place? Well, whatever the case Sammi was very upset by this.

Meanwhile Vinny is trying to get with Gina, but her uncle is being a "cockblock." He compares his situation to Romeo and Juliet, ha.

Back at the house the "grenade whistle" is blown, how funny.

Image Courtesy of MTV.com

Ronnie throws Sam's belongings telling her to GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT JUST LEAVEE!
Why does it still have "Sweetheart" next to Sammi's name? No one calls her that.

Then Sammi and Ronnie fight and Ronny talks to JWoww about this. Sammi goes crazy and repeats over and over "ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH HER?!?!?" Which is followed by a nice punch in his jaw, now this clip has been analyzed thoroughly and this girl knows what she is doing. She stepped back and really went in for it - that was not just a rookie shot, that was the kind of punch that really takes some effort.

Courtesy of MTV.com

Jenni tells Ronnie that the ONLY reason SHE wrote the note to Sammi about what he did in Miami was so that Sammi would go home. Becoming friends with JWoww just like that after a fight with Sammi was not bright, especially after what went on. Big hugs? Too soon.

Ronnie cries a lot after being punched. Seriously, that punch was epic.

Meanwhile at the barbershop there is a rumor that Dean started that Deena likes to BLEEEEEP BLEEEP BLEEEP. All the "BLEEEEP"-ing was so confusing that it was difficult to understand what they were saying, but after consulting with others the general consensus is that Dean was basically saying that Deena likes to.. suck on butts... well, that was awkward to type. Yes, and then Deena saw Dean at the club after Mike confronted her at the gym and she confronted Dean and it was all just messy.

Snookie pays over $200 to get a stripper pole for the house with Vinny.

Sammi threatens to go home - she packs her bags and everything and even calls her mom.
But then she stays and she ends up cuddling with Ronnie -- talk about dysfunctional.

JWoww then offers to be friends with Sammi - oh boy, this will lead to something insane.

A common theme in this season is that it seems like there is less "smushing" or "hooking up" in reference to Situation and Pauly D. This episode Roger and JWoww got it on, and JWoww was annoyed with her puppies during that time.

Image Courtesy of MTV

The episode was epic - that punch was just, wow.

Vinny was the voice of reason saying, "You need sucky things in life to make you stronger." He also went on about Sammi's ego.

His tweets were quite hilarious and made it known that this would be quite the episode. However, this episode was not as good as last weeks, but it did have a lot of drama - violence in relationships, dysfunction; next Thursday will be another JERSDAY.

P.S. Ryder gets a birthday cake.

The vlog to accompany this post mostly deals with the abuse that went on within the episode and other thoughts:

Georgia Ban On Sunday Beer Sales May Fall Due To Economy

If you wanted to buy beer in Georgia on Sunday, known as the seat of The Bible Belt, you had to go to an Atlanta Falcons game to do it. But that may end as the Georgia Legislature considers removing the ban next week.

It's something that new Governor Nathan Deal is expected to approve into law if it passes, and it looks like it has the votes.

Why?

The economy here is at 10.3 percent and store business owners are tired of seeing Georgians hop the boarder between Georgia and Tennessee just for beer on Sunday.

The whole deal with liquor here is whacked. Some counties allow you to purchase hard liquor and others don't. If the Sunday beer ban falls, local counties and cities will have a choice regarding maintaining the law, but given the need for revenue and jobs, it's hard to see too many local municipalities doing that.

Stay tuned.

Sarah Palin: Tracy Morgan Says She's "Good Masturbation Material" On TNT NBA

Overall, Sarah Palin's had a rough two weeks, and for all practical purposes, 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan added the icing on the cake when he said Palin was "good masturbation material," before the start of tonight's NY Knicks vs. Miami Heat game, and much to the shock and amusement of TNT's Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley.

 The result, thanks to social media, was "Tracy Morgan" became a Twitter Trend at Sarah Palin's expense, and gives the media something new to chew on for Thursday.

TNT's apologized for the "event," but the damage is done already. Palin's got to feel like the Lord punishing her because a number of negative events have happened since U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point blank range by Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson, Arizona.

First, Palin was hammered for her infamous "crosshairs" map that marked Gifford's Tucson district, then she made her image worse by defending it,...Which I complained about in this vlog:



...then used a term offensive to some in the Jewish community while working to get publicity on the day of the Arizona Shooting Memorial, then her husband, Todd Palin was fingered by The National Enquirer as allegedly involved in a sex scandal, and on Tuesday, Palin used the wrong historical reference in complaining about President Obama's State Of The Union Adress, and now this.

The best action for Governor Palin is to pray for forgiveness, because all of this is happening too fast to be of coincidence.

Meanwhile, Tracy Morgan's legend grows.  That man will say anything, anywhere, at anytime.  

SFO To Fresno To Las Vegas On A United Propjet

CES 2011 was an interesting trip for this blogger. It resulted in the first trip ever using a prop jet, and twice: SFO to Fresno to Las Vegas on a United Propjet

What happened was that the flight from SFO (San Francisco International) to Las Vegas that left out of Gate 92 at the International Terminal was so tight no standbys got on it at all. So we were sent to another flight to Fresno, with a connector to Las Vegas.

What wasn't made clear was that it was a prop jet. That brings up all kinds of images of projets in the movies with failing engines and ratty interiors. So, this alternative wasn't the best choice, but it seemed to be the only one.

The first leg, SFO to Fresno went 40 minutes quick. What was memorable was that it felt like every vibration the plane might make came through the passenger seat. Seriously. But, with all of that, the ride was smooth, if loud, and the landing quick and neat. Impressive.

The layover in Fresno was for 3 hours, and in a facility that's a small airport designed to look like a much bigger one. The end result is something like a weird aviation movie set, but with real working airplanes and propjets.

And there was reason to think one of the airplanes was going to be the next one to Vegas.

Nope.

It was another United Airlines Propjet.

This right was significantly longer and more cramped. Not in the exit row seat, I turned my body sideways to fit better and worked to sleep off the journey. What kept me awake from time to time was the scenery: the snow-covered Rocky Mountains are a breath-taking site to see, even if it brought up every horror of (again) prop jets crashing into mountain ranges.

For some reason, the sheer beauty of it all took that fear away.

Eventually, we hit the Nevada desert and landed in Las Vegas, smartly.

In all, not a bad trip and this blogger would do it again. Still, the preference here is for a 737, or even one of those real small Brazilian planes United Express also flies.

But I got their in one piece, and CES 2011 was a blast!

Sammi Slaps Ronny

There will be a much longer in-depth analysis of tonight's episode of Jersey Shore (which is not over yet) - just thought that there should be an image out there of what just happened. Sammi just punched Ronny in the face because she found out he's friends with JWOWW. Jenni was saying that she told Sammi about Ronny cheating and did the note so that Sammi would leave, not to be a good friend. Snooki's intentions were not that way.

Don't worry, Sammi comes to her senses.

Kim Kardashian Wrong: President Obama Has More Twitter Followers

Kim and Kourtney Kardashian are on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight as this blog post is written, and Kim's pumped up her image in more ways than one. Kardashian told Piers she's got more Twitter followers than President Barack Obama.

Kim Kardashian's Wrong.


President Barack Obama at @BARACKOBAMA has, as of this writing 6,454,206 Twitter Followers, versus 6,046,312 for Kim at @KimKardashian.

So Kim's just over 400,000 Twitter Followers behind, not ahead, of The President Of The United States.

There ya go, Kim.

MacWorld 2011 Gadgets ArtRage for iPad and RingO

MacWorld 2011 is underway and while the iPad, iPhone, and Macbook take center stage, there are gadgets for those products to be had and in some cases at discount prices.  Two of them are ArtRage and RingO.

During Macworld 2011, ArtRage for iPad will be available at a discounted rate of only $2.99 (normally $6.99) here at the Apple iTunes Store.

ArtRage for iPad lets you become a mobile digital artist, providing the experience of actually “painting” digitally on a computer canvas with oil painting effects that smear and blend and watercolor strokes that merge to create soft, wet gradations, just as they would in a traditional art studio.

An ArtRage - enabled iPad, tablet, or touch-screen laptop allows artists of all levels to bring their computer everywhere they go to be ready to spontaneously unleash their creativity on the spot by drawing, sketching, and painting in a wide range of artistic styles with tools that interact on the screen just as they would with real paint, ink, chalk, pen, or pencil.

RingO iPad Mount at Vogel's Booth #650

Vogel's at http://www.vogels.com, the European market leader in Audio/Video & TV mounting solutions, announced today the RingO Universal iPad Mounting System from Vogel's, the "Ipad on the Wall" at www.ipadonthewall.com/usa.

Introduced today at Macworld, RingO is reported to keep your iPad safe by securely mounting it and other tablets everywhere you go: at home, at work and in the car. It lets you use your iPad to watch movies in the car or as a home media control system in front of your television.  You can also listen to music or display a modern themed alarm clock in your bedroom.

Check out ArtRage and visit Vogel's booth to see RingO at MacWorld 2011.

San Francisco News: Local 2 Unite Here, Mike Casey, Losing SF Hotel Negotiations?

Local 2 Unite Here Union Leader Mike Casey's reportedly facing problems according to a vast number of sources to this blogger.  Mr. Casey needs to pay better attention to World economic events, and have a better understanding of the dynamics of the hotel business.

The legendary and largely popular Casey's got a problem: hotels need to cut costs in the face of what have been in some cases dramatic revenue declines, even with occupancy improvements. Hotel workers want to keep their jobs, which should mean accepting pay cuts. But Casey, who would have an easier time of it when the economy was better as it was in the early 2000s, is seen by some as standing in the way of a good resolution to the problem of maintaining hotel jobs, let alone San Francisco getting new convention business as well as maintaining existing events.

What Casey and his charges want flies in the face of most of what other workers have realized reasonable agreements on, from the union's website: Affordable, high-quality health care; Modest increases in wages; Modest improvement in pension.

The one outlier is health care, which even some hotel managers agree should be maintained in some effective way; beyond that a "Modest increases in wages" and "Modest improvement in pension" seem like political pipe dreams today, when even some hardline progressives dare talk of the need to cut pensions for public service workers.

This is why Casey's reportedly having a problem in effectively mobilizing his troops this time around. (And a number of members of his own union are sporting the "Mike Casey's Union NO, Union Yes!", button around San Francisco.) Membership in the union has decreased 30 percent from 13,000 to 9,000 in three years.  The union's contract with the hotels expired  August 2009.

Hyatt Hotels Fights Back

Casey's efforts have targeted the following hotels: Grand Hyatt, Hilton San Francisco, Hotel Frank, Hotel Metropolis, Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, Le Meridien, Palace Hotel, Westin St. Francis, and the W Hotel. The union asserts that hotels like the Hyatt have realized occupancy gains; the hotels assert that they're trying to counter rising costs and tightening margins in a still-tight economy.

It's more than occupancy rates, which have increased since 2008, but room rates. While the occupancy rates are better, overall revenues are not and that's due to, in many cases, dramatic decreases in room rates just to capture those occupancy rates.

In this, the Hyatt Hotels fought back, filing National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) charges against Local 2 Unite Here on January 19th 2011, and for allegedly violating the collective bargaining agreement and say the union "quietly diverted money [two cents an hour] from the Child & Elder Fund [to the Legal Fund], without bargaining with Hyatt."

That issue aside, the real matter is in how Mike Casey is handling this issue. It's not, with all due respect, an intelligent approach.  Mr. Casey needs to understand that hotels are businesses.  He needs to focus on how to help the hotels recover a better level of net operating income which will assure the maintenance of jobs and improve the overall standard of living for his union employees at the same time.  

If Mr. Casey created a giant online simulation of the fiscal dynamics of the SF hotel industry, took that into discussions, and used it it as a tool for the crafting of a resolution that works for everyone, he would find better conversational weather with hotel managers frantically trying to avoid losing money.

But if he continues his anti-intellectual, 1960s, and in some cases thug-like approach, he will serve neither his members or the San Francisco Hotel Industry well, and the current negative management / labor climate will continue, possibly with job cuts to follow.

No one wants that.

Mr. Casey would do well to follow the conversation at The World Economic Forum in Davos.  The World's industrialized nations are struggling with lower revenues, enormous debt, and fears of a double-dip recession.  This the climate Mr. Casey is in today.

Stay tuned.

San Francisco News: Good Discussion Of Progressives Future At The Wall

What's the future of San Francisco (and really SF Bay Area) Progressives (preference here for the term "liberals") in the wake of an economic climate that calls for lower taxes and spending? That's the subject of a terrific forum conversation at The Wall SF, also called Able Dart's Bathroom Wall.

The main point is that it's harder to be an effective common Progressive elected official because of San Francisco's enormous deficit of over $300 billion (as of this writing). The result is, and has been, a paving of the way for more "moderate" San Francisco political voices to take the place of some progressive voices.

One poster, "Chrysippus" summed it up best, writing:

Our local progressive sect has become just another fixture of a failed status quo. The moderates cater to big corporations, developers, and banks. The progressives cater to the unions, the nonprofit political complex, and the cannabis capitalists. Both sects overlook the ordinary person struggling to get through daily life in the neighborhoods.

The overall fact is we've spent a generation now chasing manufacturing out of the SF Bay Area in favor of industries like biotech, which has jobs that only a handful of people who live here can qualify for.

It wasn't always that way.

During the 70s and 80s the SF Bay Area Economy was far more balanced, with well-paying manufacturing jobs that only called for a GED to get, as well as higher-skilled and well-paying positions.

The job of government here during that time was to maintain the lower skilled jobs against foreign competition, but that didn't happen. In many cases, economic development officials dropped the ball and now the whole State of California's weaker for it.  

In fact, California stopped fighting for new large scale economic development projects long ago.  That's how the state lost the competition to have the largest atom smasher long ago.  Now, the World's Largest Atom Smasher is beneath the Swiss / French boarder; California's best known Atom Smasher's a roller coster ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Now, "the ordinary person struggling to get through daily life" just wants government to create jobs.  Period.   And by any means necessary.  

Jay Cutler Walks Around Mall In LA, Upsets Chicago Bears Fans

Chicago Bears Jay Cutler, who's image has already been destroyed on Twitter, was captured on video by TMZ.com while walking around an LA shopping center with his girl friend, Actress Kristin Cavallari.

The TMZ video person, obviously not in tune with pop culture news, failed to ask Cutler how his knee was coming along. But the video shows he was walking around without hesitation, bringing up the question of "Exactly how hurt was his knee?"

We may never know.

But the real issue for Jay and the Chicago Bears should be as much Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz as it is Jay Cutler. This blogger thinks Cutler basically got tired of being left as a sitting duck due to a bad offensive game plan.

And even when backup QB Caleb Hanie came in to replace Todd Collins and Cutler before him, Martz play calling was questionable - especially that end-around he called with 1:27 left in the game.

That play ran something like six seconds off the clock and gained no yards. Plus, he called it on third down and something like 10 yards to go.

It's a wonder Bears fans aren't calling for Martz head. But it's because people tend to react to what they see; since offensive coordinators are seldom in the public eye, they commonly escape blame for a quarterback's bad game.