Ariel Zealot

Pandarization: The West Gets Left Behind

2012-01-31T18:25:59-08:00

Post Summary: We introduce a phenomenon called Pandarization, an ever-present feature of human development. In essence, pandarization is the effect of fluctuating dominance among economically prevalent cultures. This dominance is reflected in the way in which global business gravitates and caters towards one of them because of the culture's lucrative economic prospects. When the balance of economic power shifts from one culture to another, businesses follow with a more or less pronounced cultural adaptation that invariably takes toll on the adherents of the formerly dominant cultural space.

The Phenomenon of Pandarization

The story goes as follows. It's late 2011 and Blizzard Entertainment, the studio developing World of Warcraft, announces a new game expansion. This time around, its main subject doesn't rely on the Western, Norse mythology as the game traditionally did before.

Instead, the developers introduce a new race of Pandaren, fuzzy panda-like bipeds that live in a secluded misty land (just like the lowlands of inner China for example), have far East Asian names, live in houses with East Asian architecture (reminiscent of that of traditional Chinese) and sub-tropical vegetation (just like the one in the aforementioned part of China). The new land even has its own myths and legends (also much like the Chinese ones). It's spot on to say that Pandaria, the land of these fuzzy pandas, has a culture just like that of the traditional Chinese dynasties.

Upon the announcement, the Western World of Warcraft users rebel and wreak havoc and proclaim their hatred for the developers while some find it an interesting change. But most of all, the plummeting subscription numbers will speak for themselves.

The question that arises is: Why? Why did Blizzard do that? And why did users react the way they did?

Pandas: A Sign of the Changing Times

Blizzard Entertainment has always had a history of controversy when it came to its World of Warcraft expansions. One common denominator of every new course is that they did whatever enabled more room for expansion, no matter how much it skewed the original story.
But this time, the new direction and the reaction to it were immense compared to the previous one.

While one could argue that perhaps users just can't take fuzzy monochromatic animals seriously in a game where the objective is to complete quests and wage war, the players have so far swallowed more ludicrous science fiction elements in previous expansions (see Draenei) without much hesitation.
In addition, the game already toyed with the idea in the past and introduced an in-game Lunar Festival which corresponds to the Chinese New Year.

The real reason is that revenue growth from subscriptions has been slowly declining in the West. A combination of factors like market saturation and poor economic conditions prevented further growth of the franchise.
When the north pole loses its magnetic force, where does the compass needle turn? Simple, to the next big thing: China.

Localization's Breaking Point

My claim is the following: Companies will, in order to cater to the colossal Chinese market, change the product/service experience to cater more to the Chinese consumer at the expense of a Western one. The more radical the change, the more alienated the Western consumer will feel after the transition.

The calculation is simple: the population of China is two times the size of the West by population, its market is very much in development and the opportunities there seem infinite.

Sometimes, localization is all that is needed to enter a market. But in most cases, localizing an already global product is simply not enough to conquer a market.

Up to some point, every product or service can be localized. For some industries, localization enough to make them successful. McDonald's franchises adapt everything from their language, menu selection and parts of its brand identity like the staple logo (for example, they add a little maple leaf in the Canadian franchises, logograms to the Chinese ones etc.).

Even World of Warcraft was able to do the same to an outstanding extent.
The game has a textbook case of a localization story: first localizing the language, the community, the support, adapting to the local regulations, tailoring the marketing, customizing and tweaking the experience. It's anything any other successful corporation does to adapt to the local market.

However, World of Warcraft went a crucial step further, it made conscious effort to start developing the whole gaming experience in a way that pleases primarily the Chinese local users. Limited molding of the experience to localize it simply wasn't enough.

The introduction of the Pandaren race therefore represents a breaking point. The level at which the localized user experience changed went from the local level to the core of the game's development, sending a very visible message about its new business priority: winning over the Chinese market.
To make it work, replacement of the very ideas that constitute the World of Warcraft brand was a necessity.

It's All Around You Already

Pandarization is nothing new, however. Though it is an ever-present part of reality of the market, its effect really becomes apparent with the modern forming of a single global market.

If you haven't noticed, the same process has lately been going on in the U.S. direction. Especially in the fast-paced software sector, the United States (and Europe to a smaller extent) is now the North Pole towards which all the compasses of product development are turned.

While you may not be aware of it, it is the Western culture that is having its cultural needs addressed through pandarization right now. Everything from the notions about brands, ideas and stories behind them, to the actual problems and the ways they address them, it's all done in a way that satisfies (or perhaps panders to) a member of the Western cultural sphere.
Now think of all the culture-specific opportunities around the world that nobody will grab because they are not worth pursuing (yet).

If the magnetic force turns eastward - and in some cases it already has begun doing that - the two questions you should be trying to answer are:

How not to alienate your customers in the West as Blizzard did while doing the monumental shift?*
What does it take to appeal to the consumers in a different cultural sphere?

In The Real World

To apply the issue of pandarization to the real world: who to turn your product towards in a transitory time like ours? And how to go about doing it? It is worth giving it a good thought, especially when you consider the possibility of Samuel Huntington's multipolar world coming into being.

So what happens in Huntington's world of six distinct co-dominant civilisations of which one is economically dominant? And what if two or more are on par in economic terms? It's a life-saving question since we seem to be headed exactly in that direction. The stage is open for debate.

But whatever the reality will be, being aware of the pitfalls and opportunities that simultaneously arise from replanting a product from one cultural environment into another is crucial.
Perhaps World of Warcraft developers made the right decision to "abandon" their Western audience and focus their efforts on the Chinese market. It is a sound suggestion for other companies battling in their own saturated niches.

However, it could also turn out to be a wrong decision if approached with insufficient rigor.
Perhaps the outcome of this will be a different, uncompromising way of building brands, products and services. A way that takes into account several cultural spheres - the civilisations whose markets it wants to thrive in.

* Bear in mind that a similar, closely related process can be virtually invisible. The users don't notice any changes because they aren't visible on the surface. But taking a peek below it, one soon realizes on which end of the pandarization stick they are at: Looking at where companies are cutting down on service and product quality makes you realize whether you are getting the full product deal or a cheaper compromise despite both of them having an identical look and packaging. In this case, the economically stronger market gets better treatment by association: more buying power - more demanding customer.

Gems of the Web: Spam Poetry

2012-01-29T01:33:15-08:00

The non-canned version of spam comes to us not only to raise awareness about solving all life's problems by entrusting your credit card information to a certain Chinese manufacturing company that will not only be delighted to have your trust in doing fair business of buying impeccably forged products of superb toxic quality with them but also remedy you of any positive account balance and hopefully max out your credit limit.

No, spam also comes to us to enlighten us, make us reflect upon our own selves (with reflection on selves of others being a bonus) and enjoy the pure creative genius of their authors.

Spam makes us marvel at beauty of randomness or guess which new creative writing techniques could have produced such incredible inspiring verses in quantities vast beyond imagining.

I cannot claim it as my favorite pastime but reading spam poetry indeed can be as rewarding as reading high poetry of acclaimed authors who had literary means to transform their suffering from depression and other mental disorders into a readable form.

Instead of emptying your spam folder without giving it a second thought, click on the first supposedly unworthy message and walk through them as if they were an inviting picturesque autumn park in its most vivid foliage on a refreshing cloudless sunny day.

You may find the messages advocating magical remedies for appendages you perhaps do not possess, however the reward of finding priceless gems to marvel at as you walk along this pebbled path will make it worth your time.

Soon after spam poetry becomes your hobby you start wondering if anyone other well cultured individual shares the passion for this young art form. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch of them.

Flocking around the Spam Poetry Institute website like moths around a lamppost these spam enthusiasts are sharing their discoveries with the world. And for those who don't have anything to share, simply reading through the extensive collection of poetic spam is an unforgettable experience.

Take this post's accompanying spam poems, titled "The Tantrum of a Newborn" and "Coming of Fall" respectively, as examples of sheer brilliance of their author. Mastery of words and sounds, playing with the reader in anticipation of the next line, painting a picture of subconscious associations. One way or another, spam poetry is time well spent on getting inspired and discovering your own thought processes.

***UPDATE***

Ed Desautels from Maximum Fiction familiarized me with another form of spam poetry that he learned to create at an innovative writing conference. A good analogy to this "art form" would be creation of sculptures and other artwork types from the parts found in junkyards and garbage containers.

This type of spam poetry is created by creatively adding together only the words or phrases from the original spam email. The end result of this subtraction technique is a convincing spam poem. Click here for a few examples.

Interesting Insights: Where is Facebook Heading?

2012-02-05T20:30:12-08:00

Based on my previous writing on online self-investment and its paradox, what can Google search data tell us about the current Facebook privacy situation and its consequences?

Taking into account the fact that Insights only offer a limited scope of information, the following data interpretation should be considered with at least some scrutiny.

The famous hockey stick

The first thing that falls into one's eye is the hockey stick shape for searches on deleting a Facebook account. Interest in deleting Facebook accounts has been steadily rising since 2008 but it suddenly spiked on May 13th, remaining a hot topic to this day.

While this hockey stick is not Al Gore's scare tactic to believe in his man-bear-pig, skepticism is due because the data of this ongoing topic is still coming in. However, for the time being it seems that the trend has already reached its peak and is now stagnating, even more signs that the buzz about account deletion is of limited reach.

G3: Blue - quit facebook, Red - delete facebook

Yellow - facebook alternative, Green - facebook evil

What's interesting is that the global increase was only twofold compared to recent data and about threefold in the midterm - which, if paralleled to the already ginormous and still exponentially growing number of Facebook users doesn't seem that big of an increase - certainly, at first sight this fact diminishes the hopes of Facebook profile deletion advocates.

G4: Blue = quit myspace, Red = delete myspace
Yellow = delete facebook, Green = quit facebook

But let's look at it from a slightly better perspective, comparing it to the dying mammoth, Myspace, and its historic record.

In several ways MySpace isn't comparable to Facebook. The main buzz around it was security/safety, not privacy - all thanks to its universally visible profiles (at that time Facebook was ironically offering a private alternative to it).

Additionally, search traffic and circumstances were different three to five years ago than they are now.

Yet still, intriguing conclusions can be made by comparing Facebook and MySpace search data: inquiries into deleting MySpace accounts slowly grew until 2007 and then remained steady throughout. In contrast with that Facebook deletion steadily grew for two years like MySpace and then started an increasingly steeper incline from 2009 onward.

This could mean that there actually is something going on with the number of people deleting their profiles or informing themselves on how to do it, in part because Facebook made it so hard for users to actually delete their profiles.

It could also mean that Facebook has a steady user drop that correlates with user signup.

Though only Facebook internal data could provide a real answer, it remains to be seen what impact this trend will have.

Deleting it or quitting it?

Evidently, quitting is not the word to use when it comes to social networking. Quantities for both Facebook and MySpace when it comes to quitting are practically negligible. What then is the significance of deleting over quitting? The fact is that nobody's quitting or interested in actual quitting but in deleting instead.

In contemporary sense of the word, deleting refers to data removal, it connotes erasing information. The word quitting means severing the ties with no intention of restoring them again, disassociating from social networks and relations you've established, from the profile(s) you've invested yourself in.

In this case, quitting also means turning one's back on Facebook as a brand - as can be seen on the graph (G4), Facebook's quitting record recently started climbing up. Where it will lead to remains to be seen.

Social network "evil"

Why will online self-investment paradox cause Facebook to come out of this relatively unscratched -unless the government gets involved: despite many inquiries into deleting the profile, few think Facebook itself is evil. The number is steadily climbing and is now on the same level at which MySpace was in 2007, at the peak of its evilness.

Compared to MySpace which had deletion and evil stigma walking hand in hand at its peak days, Facebook's evil and profile deletion do not match or correlate at all. This either means that users don't need additional information to verify Facebook's evil intents, that they've become smarter and more decided since 2007 or that the hottest social networking website on the planet is coated in teflon.

Blue = quit myspace Red = delete myspace
Yellow = myspace alternative, Green = myspace evil

Monopoly as the safe harbor

Data shows that there is also very little talk of Facebook alternatives. As discussed in my previous writing on online self-investment and Facebook, this is a major reason why Facebook has nothing to fear.

That could mean that users are maturing, the novelty of social networks is wearing off and the need for further presence anywhere is disappearing with some users, especially those seeking deletion of their profiles. It shows that users could be moving on to other, different niches online, and that they are defining their online interests.

However, that is only a small portion of all the users who are displaying a pattern similar to that of early adopters. Other users who are a majority, however, tend to follow the first wave.

......

That was a very brief overview of some assumptions and speculations that I've conjured up to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found is perhaps even less important than what the data made me think about.

The fact is that Facebook isn't threatened on a larger scale by any means but the share and loudness of those who are actively seeking to make it accountable for its handling of user data and counter its general attitude is growing at a increasingly faster pace. As long as it doesn't outpace the new user sign-ups, Facebook has unfortunately nothing to fear.

Instead of a conclusion I'd offer a hint for Facebook, its enemies and its competitors alike: turn the situation to your advantage by showing ads next to the above mentioned search queries, offering users to either rethink their decision, reassure them of searched service's safety or put a negative spin on it, encouraging them to join another (your) social network.

The real question in this case is: how much is a user worth to you? Search engines are doing it, you should be as well - if you can afford it.

Online Self-Investment Paradox and Facebook

2012-02-05T20:11:28-08:00

Recently, my mind's attention got caught by this Facebook transparency rant by Danah Boyd, another call to action in the electrified atmosphere of weighing in on shrinking of online privacy that is becoming an active ingredient of our internet zeitgeist.

Her politically biased discourse aside, the author does make valid and unsparingly honest remarks about the state of privacy on the web at large and the motives of various players trying to influence it.

From my perspective, its main contribution to the current Facebook privacy debate is that it makes a case for all those who (would) disagree with the site yet remain on it, it softens and bends the consumer response logic of voice/exit upon disapproving of Facebook's actions to a point at which those users are portrayed as victims who are not in a position to either leave or complain: the social contract with Facebook that was established when signing up has been gradually broken in such a way that prevents them from either exiting the service or voicing their dissatisfaction with the situation that they are not even fully aware of (again in part due to its gradual morphing).

In my opinion, this forthright attitude needs to be taken a step further. What needs to be exposed is the real underlying cause for the existence of the situation. Why do users online neither exit nor voice their complaints? The voluntary limbo they are in doesn't exist because of their own unsuspecting cluelessness, it's not because of Facebook's foul plan for gradual world domination. The attitude of most users doesn't change even when the full information picture lays bare in front of them.

The real answer lies in countless hours invested in profile building, networking, promoting the website to their social circle, the effort it took them to start trusting it and in the end the lack of alternatives that would outweigh (or have the potential to outweigh) the investment. Lack of alternatives is a major reason that has kept monopolistic services like Facebook above the water.

This real issue stems from what I call online self-investment. It is the prime issue of our internet era and at the same time an online incarnation of a dilemma as old as humanity itself, albeit with a twist.

Online self-investment simply means investing yourself in an online activity. It is a recurring theme in the life cycle of any online service or product. It shows consumer-service interaction and pitfalls thereof from the perspective of the user. It offers an insight into user behavior beyond the classic assumptions of frustration and passive attitude, adding another dimension to it.

Even though investing yourself, your time, money and your cognitive processes into something, that in itself won't prevent you from leaving or attempting to change it, though it will influence your calculation of what to do. In real life, such decisions bear real consequences that for the most part cannot be rolled back.

However, when it comes to the same situation online, the rules change. Unlike in real life, people don't have anything tangible to lose, and it could very likely be rolled back without consequences. But they can, as research shows, perceive virtual life as reality. This enables them to invest themselves into their activity in the same way as in real life.

Online self-investment that I've just described functions in the same way as one would expect from a real life self-investment but leads to a radically different result: O.S.I. therefore inevitably leads to online self-investment paradox.

Instead of deciding between voice and exit, online users keep investing themselves into an activity that they would try to change - or not continue at all - in real life. And they are doing that not despite but because of the fact that their virtual activity and its consequences are perceived as intangible, even if the service itself is costing them real money. In this sense, users still view virtual life as removed from reality.

To rephrase, users online are resuming their activity because they are self-invested in it in a very real way and at the same time still treat it as removed from reality. They are experiencing it as reality but not treating it the same way. This is what I call O.S.I. paradox, the online self-investment paradox.

I have stumbled upon this pattern throughout the internet, again and again. World of Warcraft, a paid MMO service, was a classic example of such dissonance. Millions of players who are investing time and money into an online computer game on a daily bass, a good portion of them privately disgruntled with the publisher's (Blizzard) attitude yet very few quit or raised their voice because of it, they rather kept investing their time in the game.

The lesson for anyone providing a service in this case is that in order to keep the users pacified, it has to ensure the following:

1. provide them with means for perpetual online self investment

2. make sure that you have as little competition as possible (appearing more appealing than the competition is what breaks many more services than it makes)

3. keep realities separate, do not allow for overlapping of the issues with reality: as soon as the online self-investment overlaps with reality, the individual's exit/voice decision reappears.

But what is there to do for users who actually want change? What stance do we assume, that of people as sheep needing to be lead by those who know what is right for them? Is the approach taking the fight (in the case of privacy) to every particular application/website or would time be better spent lobbying for a general regulation?

We hear criticism of Digg that it is caving in to users too much on one side and praise of companies like Facebook and Apple who follow through with their plans regardless of users' opinions. The approach works for Apple but in case of Facebook the situation is different. It is not engineers who bring services to life, it's people who do it, the engineers only serve as administration of the skeleton, the frame that helps you invest yourself in the service.

Taking that into account, Facebook should take the same path Digg did. And this is just the first of many reasons for it.

And since voicing your opinion is to no avail, exiting remains a viable alternative.

Sidenote: Little known fact: Facepook as a Facebook clone actually exists. Since it smells phishy, caution while there is advised.

YouTube Channel Parking

2012-01-29T01:35:09-08:00

Back in the old days of YouTube, when the site was still considered an online Wild West, Renetto came up with an idea of cybersquatting YouTube usernames. In the video that he posted (it has since been taken down by him along with his all other videos and then reuploaded) he encouraged users to seek as many unclaimed YouTube usernames as they can, all for a chance that some of them might be worth something at a certain point in the future - if sold, of course, to the right buyer. After all, youtube.com/yournamehere is a prominent link.

Numerous potential issues arose around then, including some people accusing renetto of encouraging illegal activity and of not thinking the thing through (due to legal concerns). Those questions are all still valid now, four years later.

What happened then was a sudden eruption of usernames that were either names of famous corporations, people, products, well known brands or imitations of other users' names.

Naturally, this was too good of an opportunity not to jump on the bandwagon myself. So on that day in September 2006 I first created a number of renowned record label usernames and then kept adding new interesting usernames in the following weeks and months. It's important to note that I decided not to do it via botting but create each account manually.

Dozens and dozens of usernames were created and parked for a potential sale in the future. And then I waited. What follows below is how things turned out (thus far).

A thing to note is also that I created and used some accounts for the purpose of political activism in 2007 when YouTube's banning and deleting of users together with video takedowns was abound. It was a real DMCA induced chaos.

The Outcome - thus far

Some of the usernames were evidently popular and my ownership (if it could be called that way, it's still a legal concern) of them was a subject of frustration to those who didn't get them first. A result of that was that those usernames underwent occasional hack and password retrieval attempts.

1st Result: Euronews taken without any questions asked

One of the channels I owned was the Euronews channel. Seeing how it is a prominent European news media company I expected to hear from them soon enough. However, they did not attempt to contact me and neither did YouTube.

The channel was simply taken away from me in early 2007 with no questions asked, no advance warnings and in a completely uncompromising manner. In other words, it was stolen.

YouTube had no firm basis to hand the channel over to Euronews: the YouTube partnership program didn't exist, Euronews does not hold a trademark of the term and the claim to a Euronews channel was completely unfounded.

In this case, nobody was held accountable for YouTube's one-sided actions.

The only thing that remains as a memory of my ownership of it is the channel's creation date: September 18th, 2006.

The same goes for the AlArabiya channel that I owned. YouTube simply stripped me of ownership without notice and handed the channel over to the Al Arabiya news network. However, there still are some glitches remaining from the ownership transfer when I try to log in with the old username data.

2nd Result: Record label's request via YouTube form overturned

In the second case I turned down an official request to give away a known record label username. The request was sent to my email in an official form through YouTube's new (and perhaps automated) username acquisition system.

The content of the automated message was asking me to be kind and hand over the ownership of the account to the record label. I had the option of "yes" and "no", deciding for the latter since the offer was nowhere near my expectations.

But at least they fixed their own faulty system and prevented account stealing from happening again.

3rd Result: Private user pleas for handing over accounts

On several occasions I've been contacted by users through YouTube's internal mail or channel's comment section (the comment wall), asking me if I wanted to donate my account to them. The answer was always negative.

On one of the hottest accounts for a popular Windows service (and a few other channels) users were periodically getting upset about the username being squatted, leaving derogatory comments, including anti-semitic ones.

So far, no profit has been made on this end either.

4th Result: Record label actually offers something of material value

Finally, after four years of waiting I've been contacted by record label who means business. That is, if you decide to call an attempt at bribing me with a T-shirt and a mug conducting business. These two items are what they initially offered me in exchange for deleting my account so they could set up their own in its place.

Of course, this is an extremely humble offering on the part of a record label that's connected with many of the top names in the music industry - but it is a start.

The only risk associated with this last record label is that it could as well be a phishing attack but that could be easily verified.

What happens with this case remains to be seen.

Sad reality of YouTube username squatting

For now, YouTube username squatting has brought me exactly zero in revenue. Most of those who are interested in obtaining a username are inquiring into the possibility under the assumption that it will be completely free of charge.

The only alternative I have is to make at least some of those usernames profitable on my own, hoping that the username itself will be an authority enough to attract viewers. I don't consider this to be very likely without providing quality content at the same time.

What remains, of course, is more waiting.

MacBook Pro in the Winter Cold

2012-02-05T20:04:53-08:00

I've gotten used to the idea of taking the MacBook Pro outside, simply because of the soothing ambient effect. The only obstacle in doing that is usually the laptop's battery life. In the winter time, however, the main obstacle can be low, below-zero temperatures. These conditions make my usually sweating hot laptop dangerously cold and although it may seem that freezing air is beneficial for my slick aluminum companion, the truth is quite the opposite.

Internal MacBook temperatures stay above 20ºC,
despite having it outside in the ice cold weather.

As I already wrote before about a faulty nVidia GPU when talking about my MacBook Pro, the GPU temperature as seen on the picture seems too high to be viewed as regular in these freezing conditions, especially when compared to the CPU temperature.

In addition, if it does actually have a faulty GPU or other components, then exposing the laptop to extreme temperature shifts during its operation will significantly reduce its GPU's lifespan. Any non-unibody aluminum MacBook Pro model can be affected.

Hard Drive Issues

The same goes for its hard disk drive whose temperature of around 20ºC is almost pushing the limit of safe operating temperature. As the famous Google's research on this subject has shown, lower temperatures in hard disks are associated with higher failure rates.

The reason for that most likely lies in devastating contraction of materials that hardware components are made of during temperature shifts and their physical properties that favor warmer environments.

Of course, in the end it's still up to me to decide whether I prefer a healthier laptop or some fresh winter air on a peaceful sunny day. For now I'll stick to the latter.

What to do when it's cold?

The bottom line is that Apple's MacBook can survive a fair amount of cold winter air. Its components still get warm enough inside its aluminum (uni)body to operate properly and the chips inside it actually prefer colder temperatures.

The only thing you have to pay more attention to is the hard disk drive (if you have a SSD drive instead you're safe from the disk issue).

The default operating temperature range for hard disk drives is 5ºC to 55ºC (41ºF to 131ºF). Keep it in this range to avoid malfunctions. This applies only to a Mac that is turned on.

To keep an eye on the working hard drive in the cool air, check the laptop's internal temperatures with iStatPro or a similar application regularly and make sure that they are not outside the range of their working temperatures.

It is very important to avoid exposing the MacBook to sudden big temperature shifts (such as going from -20ºC to +20ºC instantly) as that can cause microscopic cracks in its tech components and considerably shorten its lifespan. The computer parts contract and expand with temperature changes and small cracks can form this way.

If you are carrying your Apple laptop outside (even if it's stored in a suitcase or a bag), make sure the MacBook is turned off before returning indoors and then let it "thaw" for a while before turning it on again. That should be enough to keep it safe.

And if you are actually hardcore enough to be running your MacBook outside when it's cold, don't forget to check its temperatures regularly. It could mean a difference between a working laptop and a dead one.

If you've got questions, extra tips or advice on MacBooks in cold winter conditions, please share them in the comments below.

The Z Logo

2012-01-29T01:40:34-08:00

The main thing on this post's agenda is the introduction of my Z logo. While it could also be called the Z sign, Z symbol or a more traditionally sounding Z emblem, my decision to keep referring to it as a logo is solely for the sake of simplicity.

The previous Z logo was all about balance and stability in addition to reflecting the contrast of myself as a person. While all that still applies and the old logo continues to represent me in a nutshell, including the kinky endings of the Z, I have decided to design a logo from a different viewpoint.

This time the focus is not on an all-encompassing personal philosophy of life but what specific characteristics Z-LOT actually binds together, attempting to offer a satisfying answer to the question "what does it actually mean and what does it represent"?

A simultaneous creative process of first thinking and then drawing led me to my new logo. A logo that is out of balance yet still retaining its posture, that annihilates symmetry but remains proportional, a logo that is sharp and decisive, strong and still kinky, puzzling the observant viewer's mind why one part of it is hidden from plain sight - is it hiding or is it meant to be unable to grasp as a whole?

One thing about giving impressions is clear, the (3D) perspective that the logo subtly implies to be observed from is meant as a look from the ground below onto the massive kinky shape, piercing the sky above somewhere in the distance.

The logo is no longer in a square shaped frame but rather in golden ratio proportions which can be either a blessing or a curse. For me it is certainly the former since the logo was envisioned as heavily dynamic, contrary to its predecessor. An additional key benefit is the ease of its manipulability: it can be stretched, skewed and deformed in any number of ways, objects of various shapes and sizes can be added to it and finally, the clean, minimalistic shapes make recoloring process a delight.

I've spent quite some time playing with all sorts of variables, especially adding convenient square shapes to bind the logo to them. My favorite one is the combination of a red square with a black Z logo. It's made of clean lines, simplistic shapes and a radiant,colorful element that attempts to counter-balance the kinky shape and ground its swirling black tentacle.

A more square friendly yet compromising variant is the logo with a colored strip on its side. These can come in handy when it's time to express a certain mood or state of being and don't offer an appealing substitute for a square logo - I'd much rather see it stretched, oversized and cropped to fit or moved to the left side as I did with the favicon of this blog.

Overall, the move to create a new, clean logo felt like the right thing to do and it still does, especially since I managed to put own reflecting thoughts and feelings into a coherent form, calling those same reflections into memory each time I look at the sharp yet massive outline.

It is interesting to note a detail on creative process that led me to choosing such design. At first I was under the influence of old logo, constrained exclusively to straight symmetric lines. As I moved forward, nothing truly new happened until I turned the page, painted it black and made a simple white outline that completely defied the previous logo, putting it a vibrant green rectangular shape which immediately framed its perspective.

It's just the kind of feeling that I get when looking at my own logo, this time on an even more vocal level... mission successful.

The Hairy MacBook Pro

2012-01-29T01:47:00-08:00

This slick all-silver faithful Macbook Pro of mine has already endured a number of hardships.

When on the road, it spent most of the time safely tucked inside my Tom Bihn Buzz bag, experiencing a hefty amount of walking, running and jumping around in all sorts of unfavorable weather conditions and surviving even a nasty fall to the ground, all that without a scratch.

The reason for this durability lies somewhere between its Incase neoprene sleeve, the minimalistic waterproof sling bag and Apple's combination of design and material choices. Sure, it grumbles sometimes, and occasionally delves into theatrical waters by feigning death or demands a break from over exhaustion - but that is what all laptops do from time to time.

Beside being a trustworthy companion, it has some unique features that you won't find in a usual laptop. The most prominent one is a hair about a nail's length that is growing out of the screen with its follow-up being the letter F that looks engraved into it.

That hair is the most curious thing, I've first spotted it one day in Denmark when it suddenly appeared in the middle of the screen when I opened its lid.
My initial thought was that the screen got cracked and the thought of crack's likely widening each time I walk or run around with it sent shivers down my spine.

However, after a few days of not paying any attention to the issue I suddenly realized that the crack had moved from its initial position. A close inspection revealed that the "crack" not only resembled a hair, it indeed was one.

It made me think how it could have possibly gotten there? The entry point was most likely the right side of display, with gravity doing all the rest due to shaking in my sling bag.

I googled around to see how common the issue was and it turned out that while still uncommon, it became evident that I was far from being the only person with a hairy Apple laptop.

The problem seems to lie in Apple's glossy displays and has been around at least since PowerBook times. The glossy panel covering the LCD display is supposed to be sealed - which means that any objects finding their way inside the screen are covered under Apple's warranty policy, granting you a free repair in case a hairy laptop is to much for the user to handle.

I found quite interesting stories about various dust particles and hair appearing under the displays, even live bugs crawling beneath glossy displays.
I also spotted a graphic designer who one day found his cat's hair inside his MacBook Pro display. What a bad kitty! Pet hair seems to be a regular occurence in these not-so-tightly-sealed glossy displays while encountering human hair is not all that frequent.

Since the time of its first appearance the hair has moved around quite a bit and is now in an almost vertical position... but just how and when it decides to move is still a mystery to me.

This MacBook's second notable feature is its engraved letter F at the very bottom of the screen (below the MS Word sign on the picture). I am clueless as to when exactly it appeared but the bright mark resembles the letter F so closely that I don't have a valid explanation how it got there in the first place - unless you consider supersecret marking by Secret Service to be a valid one.
I do suspect that in this case he real reason might actually be a crack in the display, but once again I remain puzzled: how can a crack suddenly appear in the form of letter F? Unusual indeed.

However, the next issue is of more serious nature for a change. I am fairly certain that it has a bad nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphic chip, a major industry-wide problem that has also been noted by Apple.
Since the failing GPU affects MacBooks Pro and all other laptops with this particular graphic card (meaning all MBPs up to the autumn 2008 revision), mine is also a very likely victim of this sudden defect.

What raises my suspicion even further are high idle temperatures (displayed on the picture) that my laptop has - the graphic chip with its 60º C idle temperature is nothing less than alarming.
All that means that I should get it fixed before a spontaneous self-combustion happens - or before my warranty expires (there's three years left to fix that GPU issue). That would mean an unknown amount of days without my MacBook, a solution I'm far from willing to accept... but that's another topic.

Warranty Void

Ever since the first hair was found inside the display of the laptop, several others have periodically appeared and disappeared over time, along with visible specks of dust. Unfortunately, the MacBook's warranty is now void and any attempt at display repair would be quite costly.

The lesson in this case is the following: if you do find a hair or other particles inside your laptop's display, demand a replacement for it immediately (while it still has its warranty). Otherwise, prepare to live with a hairy MacBook.

On Obama: Democracy Check VS Democracy Challenge

2011-03-17T02:14:25-07:00

Yesterday's internets were abuzz and still are resonating with Obama's swift victory in U.S. Presidential election. It could be debated if and how historic and groundbreaking the event was, its symbolism and meaning, causes and contributors to it.
While I do agree that those questions deserve their rightful attention, another not often enough mentioned assortment of thoughts comes to my mind - ironically, a view that I deem to be the most important one if we are to learn any lesson from human history in order to avoid repeating them...

Shaking off all the hype about continuity, hope and change, and shifting focus from the two main presidential candidates onto the grander voting plane which includes libertarians and other walkers on the edges of U.S. political landscape, what we bore witness to and almost one hundred and fifty million individuals participated in by casting their votes was in essence a simple and effective democracy check.

The election itself proved that the voters - even though I would not go so far as to claim that all groups of voters fall into this category (and this could be a heavily debated issue) - still believe in the electoral process and recognize its significance, believe in their own role in it and most importantly, their decisions are also founded on inclusive democratic principles.

Therefore it could be labeled as a minor thing, its only function being performing a check that on the most important of mechanisms of democracy, voting, and making sure that it is still working.

Up to this point there hasn't been any major deflection from the mainstream focus: the democracy check that I have briefly described here has been highlighted periodically since the election and got its spotlight in the media.
However, what has failed to appear on the importance radar was the democracy challenge, wherein challenge does not mean the dire economic prospects that Obama is facing, neither the difficulties he will encounter should he attempt to enforce whatever change-promising policy of his.
In fact, talking about the hard tasks awaiting Obama when compared to the stakes of the real Challenge is being naive if not downright irresponsible neglection of far more important, even crucial facts and might be challenging in its own limited way but really is a faux challenge.

Democracy challenge is simply put a part which chronologically follows the check and is far more difficult to overcome (imagine an iceberg where its tip is check and what lies beneath in the ice-cold water is the challenge). In fact, it is here where democracy fails most of the time, at the very breaking point of benefits of such a rule, a point where the slope becomes too steep for democracy to continue climbing and each attempt to push the limit can only cause a fall far below.

Take a look at any number of regimes that climbed to power with promises that turned out to be empty and hence a disappointment for the voting populace which translated to a failure of democracy to them, causing a downturn in political culture, passive attitude and eventual rise of support for non-democratic rule.

This outcome applies to established democracies with a long democratic tradition while transitional and newborn democracies have much more abrupt and dire consequences to face, although the outcome is essentially the same in both cases - fall of democratic rule.

Autocrats and tyrants, extreme ideologies and personality cults thriving under their reign, their tightly clenched fist basking in gloomy effects of repression as evaporation of freedoms and pillaging of domestic finances bring the country to war and eventually down its knees.
This pattern has been observed continuously throughout history, and while the tyrants still rule in such a cyclical fashion, one after another, a properly functioning democracy at least puts an end to this vicious cycle.

To conclude my thoughts before wandering even further astray, electing Obama was only a minor step for democracy compared to the one that is waiting ahead.

And that is especially because power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is yet another two-edge sword for Obama and Democratic majority Congress.
My thoughts may seem grim but my hopes remain high, hopes of meeting the real Challenge face to face and taking a stand against it. Even if it fails, the indestructible seed of human hope will survive, ready to take root when the old memories are washed away.

Blogging vs Microblogging

2012-01-29T01:16:10-08:00

When I am referring to microblogging I am naturally talking about Twitter - or better yet - twittering. Though this will inevitably turn into an Internet fad as well, I strongly doubt that Twitter or any similar service such as FriendFeed and identi.ca would lose their appeal to me due to a more convenient way of expressing myself like it happened with blogging for a while.

Round one

My main issue between tweeting and blogging was that the former became not complementary to the latter but a supplement for it instead.
The newly formed relation between the two certainly seemed quite convenient for a certain period of time, especially when I was focused on passing all eleven exams I had left, though as time passed I gradually began realizing how limiting this short form of communication can be and decided to do an above-mentioned evaluation in the form of a long anticipated blog post...

I admit that I'm predominantly twittering these days, and there are several other-than-time-based reasons why I take it to my liking: it shifts my focus from a coherent, delayed type of writing to an instantaneous one where the mood bursts have an opportunity to stand out (which undoubtedly leaves a lot of room for sociological analysis and experiments).

Beside the possibility to express your mood, a network of users sending short instant text messages offers an excellent information flow without any obstacles or regulation, which is an absolute blessing for cell-based group communication with great potential to use the (mobile or any other device) distributed information to your own liking, for example creating ad hoc meetings.

Communication Trends

If I had to find a suitable parallel, the most accurate one would probably be comparing YouTube vlogging and Stickam with a pinch of Seesmic. The interesting thing to point out here is the nonlinear development that both text and video communication of his type had - on the Internet, video messaging didn't evolve from text-based services but instead had a side by side evolution and only recently merged with it.
On the other hand, they both had a similar pattern of development: from focusing on larger chunks of information towards satisfying more and more instantaneous communication needs, finally leading to the smallest acceptable information amounts.

Another related trend that I've noticed is the constant need for services that encompass all other existing services and aggregate their information. What becomes of this development is a horizontal order in which the sources of information are seemingly dictated by the new emerging aggregators who in fact act predominantly upon demand.

Round two

Since the discussed minimization trend has all but gone unnoticed, various fancy terms and definitions that reflect understanding of this development have been coined for such services during the last two years. Probably the most suitable (though a tad pretentious) is microblogging - as Anand Rajaraman defines it, "microblogging is semi-synchronous publish-subscribe messaging", according to which services like the Indian SMS GupShup dwarf Twitter with their enormous user base.

The inevitable debate about blogging and microblogging that sprang up as a result of dilemmas similar to my own is a pretty ancient (measured in Internet time) one and I doubt there is much that hasn't been said about it yet, which leaves me to elaborate my own standpoint in order to avoid any repetitions.

To continue with comparison of the two, a brief reflection on my past blogging posts is required.
Things that I would be blogging about a year ago, for example running, are now included in my twitter updates. This means that microblogging can successfully supplement the diary function of a blog - be it the pure facts-stating part or more private observations as well.

Twittering is perhaps less thoughtful and reflective though the limited 140-character message size that causes it at the same time pushes one towards increasingly compressed messaging which in return successfully counters the lack of above mentioned thoughtfulness and reflectiveness. The micro version of blogging therefore remains far less time-consuming and straight to the point while staying just as personal as real blogging.

Ding Ding Ding!

Even though this seemed to be a strong rational argument in favor of microblogging at first, I later began realizing that the worshiped micro platform of communication is only able to realize one array of needs someone like me might have. Forcing thoughts to be expressed in only one way brings development in terms of creativeness of expression in that particular format but neglects all the others.

It is as if only one branch of a tree would be given a chance to grow and blossom while all others would eventually dry up - the problem of this is that the single branch only has a limited direction, reach and capacity of growth, no matter how big and beautifully complex it gets, thus wasting tree's resources that would be more beneficial elsewhere.

Though that may seem self-evident, I never gave it much thought before I started writing this blog post - another reason in favor of blogging. In general, I've come to a conclusion that services should adapt to forms of expression and not vice versa. Their users are then given the possibility to do the opposite and bing these service to their creative limits.

An interesting idea for the latter that I had when looking at the silly amount of fictional Star Wars characters as users on Twitter was to start a highly entertaining series in its microblogging narrative form, a step above the fake Richard Dawkins (who unfortunately got deleted after several complaints) or Fake Steve Jobs in the blogging sphere, though the most suitable thing to compare it to comes from videoblogging: the LonelyGirl15 series. While we have yet to see any such use of microblogging in practice, it surely gives some much needed backing to arguments for sustainable micropublishing.

The Loser and the Winner

After all conclusions that I have already drawn, the real winner of this clash is anyone who realizes that there actually is no feud between blogs and microblogs since they represent two different approaches to communication with the possibility of blending through old-fashioned service mutations or the horizontal order approach.

I was a loser in this respect for quite some time, turning into a twitter evangelist, completely substituting blogging for it and attempting to convert everyone to join my ranks along the way. Though I did think of my blog, I only wanted to use it as a service that binds together together and periodically posts them in a blog every now and then, essentially trying to reverse the way horizontal all-encompassing services are created. Blogging services unfortunately weren't created with that in mind, nor should they be.

What I'll try to do from now on, however, is use both of them, each for their own purpose and undoubtedly far beyond that - after all, the services are there for us to test their limits.

Insolitology - One of Web's Hidden Jewels

2011-03-17T02:11:24-07:00

There are few sites on the web that fascinate me more than Insolitology with its retro 90s look, a marvelous collection of deviations and oddities that the Internet has to offer.

Basically, if you are fond and appreciative of, even looking with admiration at all kinds of unusual, strange, completely ridiculous, brilliantly insane and sometimes madly chaotic things like me - or just want to have a good laugh for hours and hours, Insolitology.com is a priceless resource for that purpose.

A wide collection of all sorts of websites that human mind can fathom (some of them unfortunately already deceased) from crazy people and organizations, including the classics like Ted Jesus Christ God (my personal favorite). The authors of the site are creating an even more amusing atmosphere with their quirky writing style, spicing up the already insanely funny creations - these two guys really know how to have fun!

The best thing about these insane geniuses is that they are mostly quite tech-savvy and use the latest technologies to spread their messages (Ted has been using YouTube for quite a while now), letting us know that they're not a remnant of the past, lost somewhere in the early nineties, and also making it possible for us to communicate with them in real time.

What's your favorite unorthodox website?

European Appeasement and Tolerance

2011-03-17T02:10:12-07:00

It is often heard from all corners that bitter lessons of European past should never be forgotten, especially those of 20th century, with fingers pointed at various totalitarian regimes. Certainly, some fingers are directed specifically at their rise, citing everything from hatred and past wars to inherent destructive potential of those ideologies.

All kinds of antifascist movements and efforts, educating people about the holocaust, frequent reminders of Nazi and Soviet terror. In the end it all culminates into a zero-tolerance policy towards supporting these atrocities - predominantly on the left side of political spectrum, which is far less sensitive to such restrictions of freedom.

Trying not to repeat one's own history this way is in itself a worthwhile cause. But are those accusing fingers really pointed in the right direction?

I have to distance myself from this approach, stating once and for all that I strongly disagree with it. Since the purpose of this post is not to discuss curbing of liberty and its implications - which could also serve as an indicator of flawed logic and consequentially failure of current approach - I will instead address something I deem as crucial in understanding the real problem, using but a simple metaphor.

What is being done at present time about preventing the grim past events from ever reoccurring is analogous to pointing at the upper side of the coin, a coin that quite obviously has two sides. It is only this side of the coin that receives wide attention, carrying the burden of responsibility and guilt in the eyes of those who keep a close eye on it while the equally important lower side remains hidden, unrecognized, even forgotten.

If the coin were to disappear altogether, being successfully pushed out of sight, and then reappear at a later point in time, the dangers brought along with it would only be recognized and acted upon if its previously visible upper side has remained in top position - but since it is as likely that previously unseen side will now be the one on top (due to an innocent flip somewhere along the way), the tainted coin will just as likely sneak past without raising suspicion or being recognized for what it really is, putting into motion the same atrocious sequence of events that more than once before plagued our planet after being so naively inserted into the societal slot machine.
However, unlike in the past, the chance of saving ourselves this time might be far more bleak.

The sides of the coin that I am mentioning are of course dangers of "-isms" (particularly the famous 20th century totalitarian ideologies) on one hand and the danger of appeasement on the other. The former is widely recognized and fought against, the latter neglected and buried in a quiet remote corner of Cemetery of Reality, right next to other disturbing parts of ourselves we would rather not talk about.

For example, the aggressive advancement of Nazi regime in Europe was just one side of the story. European appeasement and caving in to its threats was the other - it's important to point out that what is now perceived as threats were once entirely acceptable and legitimate demands.
Looking straight in the eyes of this sad history of European appeasement is avoided at all costs, most likely due to the conviction that doing just that would either serve no purpose or is seen as a hog on resources that are already being funneled into a variety of (for example) antifascist efforts.

Even though the saying about good men and triumph of evil sums up these efforts quite nicely, giving them a solid moral backing, it is still very saddening to know of their certain failure in the long term.

While this one-sided prevention is getting more and more extreme in its measures, the one thing we should never ever let occur again is actually appeasement itself.

It is most discomforting to observe how inflexible and outdated the watchers of the upper coin side really are: only tracking the historic "-isms" and from this perspective failing to properly address any destructive system that isn't a product of European origin, even lacking interest in doing so or being undecided. But the worst of all is the inevitable unnoticeable slide towards appeasement of whoever managed not to qualify for the totalitarian/fascist label.

This applies to everything from modern genocides to harsh authoritarian rule. There is, however, one important additional application - it is actually the main reason why I started writing this post.

The above examples are almost all of external nature, from beyond the sea, meaning a greater ease of distancing oneself from them (due to a seemingly far less direct influence), so what is required now in order to complete the picture are internal examples.
As Pat Condell would undoubtedly agree, the best example of that would be European appeasement of numerous Islamic groups with political agendas, forcing them into mainstream society, all at the expense of constantly eroding freedom of our own. What is even more disturbing is the similar meaning between appeasement and submission.

Giving such an ideology more and more room to accommodate itself in the midst of unsuspecting future victims is not at all an innocent doing, the most suitable adjective would be suicidal. It's particularly alarming that not only we seem to be on the verge of appeasement's reign but also that the old fascism detector is malfunctioning because of it, which is most clearly visible in the rise of unsanctioned, tolerated anti-semitism.

And since I've already mentioned such an interesting, paradoxical expression, let me add a much-needed word or two on tolerance as well. Tolerance in my opinion paves the road to appeasement and serves only as an excuse to justify it.

In itself, tolerance does not mean acceptance and understanding, it does not represent symbiosis or even compromise, tolerance is nothing but the process of enduring someone's pressure, even infliction of pain while trying to compensate for it with appeasement towards that same person.

Tolerance does not contain the rational component that would cover a sympathetic attitude toward someone you seem to be in disagreement or conflict with - it is at best a temporary solution for avoiding conflict without having any intention to at least attempt to gain sufficient knowledge for understanding the tolerated individual. Even the notion of tolerance presupposing patience as its core element is false since patience is actually a calculative approach, based on rational filtering of specific relevant information.

On the whole, tolerance is a completely inappropriate word to use for elaborating conflictual interpersonal relations - but it does go along well with appeasement.

In conclusion, I would once more like to state my concern over the gap between the ones who fail to see appeasement for what it is, perhaps even giving lectures of tolerance along the way, and those few who recognize its innate destructive potential, waiting to catch us off guard once again.

Learning from own mistakes in this case does not mean only preventing the past ideologies from ever regaining power by restricting them, it is equally (if not more) important that emerging ones (yet unknown to us) are being anticipated, recognized and dealt with accordingly while the resources for that are still at our disposal or in other words, before it's too late.

I suspect that this very issue will heavily influence a related debate of negative vs. positive freedom, but that's another topic.

Expergefaciphobia - The Fear of Waking Up

2012-01-29T01:49:03-08:00

Etymology of the tongue-twisting word that dwells in the title above: When I was sifting through dictionaries and resources in search of a term that would best describe this mental condition, the most convenient word I was able to find was expergefacio (from ex-pergo-facio), a Latin verb meaning to awaken. Since there was no phobia related to waking up, I made an elegant move and created the neologism that you see in the title.

The word neither looks nor sounds pleasant and that is exactly how the fear of getting up is experienced. In addition, that makes its prospects of becoming the next pop culture buzzword quite dim.

The key to fully understanding the expression requires a thorough explanation of its English translation, the fear of waking up. The phrase itself is almost always used in a metaphorical way, predominantly in a political context, but to be able to comprehend its meaning in a true phobic sense, a slight deterrance from the prosaic usage is required - for in this case, its meaning is quite literary.

The next arising question is naturally why is the act of waking up, the moment in which one starts fully regaining conscience after a period of hibernation so crucial, so important to cause an irrational fear in an individual, namely myself.

It is precisely at this point that a distinction from other related words can be made, thus narrowing the definiton further or at least giving it a desired direction. In addition, gaining understanding of expergefaciphobia through questioning its right to exist seems like a suitable approach.

If waking up is what one is afraid of, the logical conclusion is that the fear of sleep (hypnophobia, somniphobia) would be more entitled to receiving all the attention. However, this way of thinking is false - it's true that sleeping itself or even falling asleep eventually leads to the point of waking up, but an essential part of somniphobia among various feelings of insecurity and vulnerability is a fear of not waking up.

In this case, it does not matter what had been occuring during the hibernation, it is not a matter of expergefaciphobia to deal with a nightmare or the negative events of the previous day. Even though it could be argued that the process of sleeping after all causes the awakening, it isn't the causes that we're after when it comes to defining the phobia - effects are the dreaded reason for showering this point zero, the moment of waking up with so much attention.

If it is the the effects that we're after, the wrong assumption to make would be that we're having a certain fear of the future, trembling before the mischiefs that start preying upon us the very moment we open our eyes after spending several hours in a blissful state of careless slumber.

This would only lead to dismissing the issue as teen angst, which is clearly not the case, and even though we like to feel young, angsty behavior isn't exactly a positive trait that would fall into this phobic context. If you see someone screaming in despair over the uncertain future of their 15 year-old life, the chances that you've stumbled upon a case of expergefaciphobia are very slim (still, such a possibility does exist).

At this point I would like to assure my readers that we still haven't run out of options for a credible exposition, even though we've eliminated both the past and the future from the pool of possible explanations by introducing several different phobias.

What was still not addressed so far is the present, these loathed undesired events and processes occuring as one is waking up - or rather, it is becoming aware of their occurence and inevitable effects that truly is the root of expergefaciphobia.

If I rephrase this revelation: the cause of the fear of awakening is the effect of waking up, plain and simple. However, there are some prerequisites for getting to this point in the first place.

You see, it takes a very particular and informed view of the world combined with a great deal of self-observation to even start thinking in such a way, to start seeing sleeping a bit differently. Let me try to describe for you what "a bit differently" actually means.

Rationalizing the Phobia

Waking up horrifies some people in two different ways: the first one is the feeling of dying every day and resurrecting as a different person. It is a "somewhat" exaggerated version of reality - which is precisely what makes it a phobia - but it is nonetheless true.

The reasoning behind it is that our minds are a subject to constant change. Despite the fact that the mainstream is treating personality as a stable, permanent, fixed phenomenon (or a set of phenomena as I like to claim), it is in fact all but that: constant incremental changes are occuring within each fluctuating mind on a daily basis, too small pieces of a giant puzzle for anyone to take notice, slowly but surely reshaping your mental landscape.

Naturally, sticking to the same cognitive operations undoubtedly can restrict your speed, course and extent of changes, but in principle it still remains chaotic and unpredictable, its long-term effects impossible for our minds to grasp.

As several researches have discovered recently, the most substantial portion of changes is coming about during our sleep. For example: it is not just the level of our hormones that changes (which heavily influences our behavior and performance in itself) but potentially also our individual selves.

The phobic component here is obvious: going to sleep will inevitably mean critical changes in thinking, moods and attitudes, which will lead to conflict with previous night's mental state and its plans for the future, almost certainly meaning a triumph over poor defenseless yesterday self. It is not necessarily always so but according to people's experience, waking up remains quite an unfavorable lottery.

That is why some people fear of waking up more and more, prolonging their departure to bed until they've done all they could possibly think of for that day - simply because there is a good chance for your near future self to write it off for good.

So once again, it is not the sleep that these people fear (except perhaps a lack of it) but the predominantly (un)controllable consequences that it brings when waking up.

It is extremely hard for a chaotic mind to control such a situation - the main problem is of course the lack of focus or direction, a set of personal rules or principles that would need to be created to compensate for constant mental variability. Until you are capable of constructing something like that to hold on to as you journey from one day to another, there really isn't much you can do except shiver at the thought of waking up next day.

Countering the Morning Mood

The second way in which waking up horrifies some people is the physical zombie mode they start most of the mornings in. It significantly contributes to their early set of decisions (the first one usually being the binary to get up or not to get up).

The good news is that the mood when waking up can be manipulated relatively easily - getting enough quality sleep (in complete darkness and silence), raising the level of serotonin in your body (by exposing yourself to direct sunlight), changing the living environment or waking up at just the right moment.

The latter is of course easier said than done (and also another lottery) but things like Axbo alarm clock or any number of sleep applications for iPhone will help you wake up at the perfect time. In fact, the sleep and "wake up" industries are currently in full bloom.

I hope that you have by now realized that waking up is not always easy. In fact, for some people it actually is the hardest thing imaginable - but the endless flock of people complaining about being drowsy in the morning certainly doesn't fall into this category.

The fact is that expergefaciphobia is a serious enough condition to deserve wider attention, at least for its underlying ideas if not anything else. The least this report could do is to help make some sense of related issues to anyone suffering from a related condition.

The Philosophy of Traveling Light

2012-01-29T01:17:31-08:00

I travel lite.
Ever since I remember, I've had an inclination to travel in a light fashion, as little encumbered by luggage of any sort or redundant apparel as possible, regardless of where or for how long I went. Even back in the early school days, I remember feeling overjoyed whenever I could come to school without a schoolbag on my back, using extremely flexible and light materials like small plastic bags or simply stuffing things into my pockets.

The same goes for any trips that we've made. At first I just kept shortening the list of things I needed to carry in my backpack but soon ended up eliminating the backpack altogether. It was a clumsy self-limiting burden, and going around without its over-encumbering weight always gave me the feeling of being infinitely more free than having this bloated abomination in any shape of form somewhere nearby.

As the years went on, I started taking great pride in reducing the essential things I had to carry around to the lowest possible amount - it became almost as painting an abstraction of an abstraction, a journey along the path of realization that most things indeed serve no other purpose than providing some inner comfort, a mental patch for their bearer.
This minimalistic, almost ascetic attitude didn't just apply to my travels, it extended far beyond that and in many ways became an integral part of my life, in my own opinion heavily contributing to who I am today as a person.

In addition to being more free or at least having a perception of greater freedom, roaming around in a light fashion does have at least two more advantages that I've come to notice - firstly, it makes you blend into the local atmosphere much faster, which is something I certainly love to do when I travel around, and secondly, it undoubtedly makes the trip a whole lot more exciting and adventurous (which could be further enhanced by taking along much less than you require for survival in a cold night).

So when I considered purchasing a MacBook Pro, I was faced with a serious dilemma. Since I would likely carry it with me everywhere I went, the laptop would then require a bag of its own. But what kind of a bag exactly? I couldn't settle for one of those horrid big square conventional backpacks or a pretentious impractical briefcase, what I needed was something tiny, flat and with an imaginative well thought-out use of space, a bag that you can put over your shoulder without anyone noticing it's even there and also without anyone even suspecting that a laptop is hiding inside it (some of us would rather keep it a surprise).
On the other hand, it has to provide sufficient protection for the things it holds - I want to be able to jump around and run around when I feel like it without its contents suffering any scratches or signs of wearing, not to mention the durability of the bag itself or the shoulder and back of its wearer.

I sailed across the interwebs for days, searching furiously and trying to find anything remotely close to my wishes. The closest thing I found was the Incase Sling Pack. I do admit, it has quite a few features I wanted but it's also too big, square and has a "Laptop Inside" sign written all over it.

I kept cruising around, finally stumbling upon an interesting item. It contained two short words: "The Buzz", leading me to Tom Bihn bags website with an old-fashioned red airplane sign at the top. The plainness immediately caught my attention, so I kept reading onward and it became clear that the bag presented on this was made to be worn on my back.
As its heart-warming about and FAQ sections of the page say, the company making it bears the name of its bag designing mastermind Tom Bihn. It's a company type that is particularly hard to find nowadays - a small factory in Seattle in which all bags are sewn together from high quality materials by a team of just 18 employees in what I imagine is a very friendly working environment.

Of course, making the bags at home (and not in China for example), using only the best materials and taking care of the workers means a lot higher final bag cost. But if you take into account what you actually get for your money, the price suddenly seems awfully low - a perfect high-quality bag with a lifetime guarantee, incredible customer support and a firm philosophy behind the process of its making.

But there was even more to The Buzz than that. Its compactness and curves immediately made me fall in love with it. Of course, as someone who has a secret desire to design and sew his own clothes and wallet I couldn't resist imagining a few improvements of my own, but even in its present form, the bag is pretty impressive, especially when taking into account its cheaper alternatives.

I feel like this is the sling bag I simply need to carry my (currently inexistent) laptop in - in part because it's made of awesomeness and in part because of what it represents. My next course of action after getting a laptop will therefore be ordering the Buzz and writing a review of it, hopefully finding out that it fits not only my body but more importantly my light travel philosophy.

There is no doubt that a cult status of Tom Bihn bags is already established among their users and spreading around the world (through word of mouth), and being a part of it would indeed add an interesting dimension to owning a bag, turning me into a missionary with the holy task of saving the souls of all cheap bag wearing heretics... in a way, that is what I am already doing.

I believe that the company has immense potential if it remains on its current path: of course, I have doubts about how long can this growth be sustained without sacrificing some accessibility and attention that it coats its customers with - but in either case, the aura surrounding its brand name is simply too valuable to be thrown away. And it's too valuable not to invest in. Though I doubt that will ever happen, I'll certainly have to be on the lookout for such an opportunity.

Now that I've brought this bag issue up, I also need a new minimalistic wallet - and I haven't been able to find one that suits me, I've thought of designing my own over and over again. I wonder if Tom Bihn is up for designing another product, something along the lines of his organizer pouches.

On Decentralizing YouTube: iTube and gTube

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

As everyone in YouTube's community is pointing out lately, the site just isn't what it used to be, particularly community-wise.
Banning some prolific video creators from the site, highly questionable censorship practices, selective top lists (which basically means gaming their own system) and on a personal note disastrous picks of featured videos has been accompanying the site from the start but has only recently become a center of attention, mostly because technical issues have been resolved, turning all eyeballs to the second of most annoying problems on the list and furthermore robbing YouTube of an excuse, an alibi for its undesired practices.

As always, a lot of opinions, ideas and suggestions on how to bridge this corporate vs. commnity gap (and where - if anywhere - it's leading) have been circling around, though the latter has been in short supply this time... That's why I decided to throw in one of my own related suggestions and make the pile just a bit bigger.

I think what we really need is the following: YouTube should level the playing field by introducing gTube and iTube (which is already a registered trademark). What these two (un)registered trademarks stand for is this: I envision gTube (also known as GroupTube) as a hierarchically subordinated YT where a group of associates can have their own Internet video portal with all the features and editorial powers at their disposal, including their own subdomain, for example z-group.youtube.com - a customizable self-managing system within YouTube, suitable for either corporations or groups of individuals with enough time on their hands.

If gTube is meant for collectives of individuals, iTube would essentially be meant for personal use: your usual YT channel turned into a limited GroupTube, accommodated for personal use. This doesn't mean only getting your own subdomain like ariel.youtube.com but also extending the control over current features, such as Favorites, and incorporating other Google services in the page (think Blogger).

The majority of users will most likely stick to their current profiles while a portion of video creators might be interested in iTube's advantages. The gTube is meant for a small number of users (groups), mostly established companies and aspiring collectives of individuals who want to take advantage of YouTube's provided tools and Google's video repository or would simply like to have their own web TV station for free.

So what exactly would this dispersed, decentralized system bring to its creator? It would keep existing big fishes in YT's pond, attract new ones due to an already existent set of tools and of course a fair share of advertising revenue from ads and commercials on the new sites.

Overall, I think that I think the idea itself is worth at least a thoughtful consideration, if not complete devotion to its aims... the least we could get from it are those lovely subdomains.

LiveVideo vs. YouTube

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

Here is my own take on the subject as a whole. It's a bit fragmented due to the fact that it's more a synthesis of unfolding events rather than an analysis.

After a day's break from the Internet I finally logged into my YouTube account and checked the subscriptions. The first thing I noticed was a strange anomaly: at least one fifth of the videos had "LiveVideo" in their titles and in the next 24 hours every serious video blogger was to post at least one video about this novelty.

It's not clear who actually started the LiveVideo discussion but it exploded almost instantly, with PeriUrban and others sharing their views. A sea of responses followed, with Tom contributing probably the most thought-out of all responses, and then again replying to geriatric1927's (a very unusual thing for him to do) own response. From Pipistrello to Argent009, everyone had something to say about it.

LiveVideo

So, what else was I to do than check it out for myself? With mixed feelings and a suspicious look I took a look at LiveVideo.com, finding nothing less than a blatant copy of YouTube! I quickly registered a few usernames, liking the fact that it allowed me to register my own name (unlike YT)!

The site seemed very decent: with trendy dark colors, an almost Yahoo-like layout and almost all of YouTube's features, its design still seemed a bit rough and without the glorified minimalistic functionality, but still very cozy.

LiveVideo seems almost like it aims to be YouTube mixed with Stickam (and MySpace) without any of their problems. It seems to do that job extremely well, especially because it was made with all the different dimensions (and difficulties thereof) in mind that have opened up recently, while YouTube was simply adding layer upon layer until its foundations started to crumble beneath the unexpected (unpredicted) weight.

It still has its flaws, for example no QuickList feature (which is really annoying to me), its flash player almost kills off my 900MHz Celeron - which is a much greater performance hog than YouTube and probably makes the videos unplayable on mobile devices (which could prove to be a problem in the future), but for the most part it certainly is superior to its alternatives.

Out of Nowhere? Nope.

The most strange thing about LiveVideo is that it appeared out of the blue and even nalts didn't seem to notice it before the discussion about it gained momentum on YouTube.
Even LiveVideo itself seems to be wrapped into a veil of mystery, revealing very little information about itself: it has a company blog with a more personal approach to users, a notice that their copyright agent is located just south of L.A. international airport and that it's owned by LiveUniverse Inc. Hold on, LiveUniverse?

Let me explain. LiveUniverse Inc. is a company that owns about 20 web services, all of them focusing on social networking and online video communities (which have become traffic generators for LiveVideo, like this one and this one).

This is also the same company that created MySpace (with their chief executive Brad Greenspan) and as one comment at mashable.com pointed out, there is some smoke and mirrors with its success - they hired video bloggers during their start up to make the site appear more appealing and as mentioned before, they are artificially generating traffic with sites like their recently acquired flurl.com.

When you realize how powerful and ruthless this YouTube's new competitor really is, a whole new horizon of possibilities opens: I'm beginning to doubt that LiveVideo's emergence on YouTube really was a spontaneous event - probably not. But speculations about who in the YT community was paid to advertise LiveVideo to the side, it is quite obvious that its developers were paying close attention to the community, sculpting LiveVideo to fit their collective needs (Argent009 made a clever observation that it seemed as if they'd be watching YT community and incorporating every feature they proposed to YouTube).
And last but not least, I sense a strong Hollywood connection here...

Unfolding of Events

However, YouTube isn't a saint either: it quietly removed the LiveVideo-related videos (vlogs) from all most viewed/discussed lists, stripping them of all honors (how else could you explain that the most hot topic was nowhere to be found?) - and therefore acknowledged its awareness of the new competitor. Still, exercising such power heavily undermines YouTubes credibility and is most certainly not a good prospect for the future.

In any case, the YouTube community of content creators and especially video bloggers finally seems to be "growing up" (as in getting more experienced), hopefully realizing that YouTube is just one of many similar services. Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean a detachment from the YT community but rather decentralization, dispersion of content to multiple sites - which means that we can expect some more upload bandwidth consumption and a few new services that deal with distribution of your newly created video to a number of sites.

What surprised me the most with all the talk about LiveVideo is that those who decided to "migrate" mostly kept giving the impression that YT community is a single entity but only considered their "friends" to be a part of it - unlike those with a more neutral approach who emphasized their power of individual choice.
One question certainly remains unanswered: Is this power of collective choice like a swarm of hungry grasshoppers, moving from one meadow to another (and back again)? I hope not.

And as for YouTube itself... it certainly is a late wake-up call, a healthy slap in the face just before you moonwalk over a cliff. They had months (which is years in Internet time!) to deal with complaints or at least change their please-hold-on attitude; a reactionary blog entry is simply too little too late.

The Internet is a Series of Tubes!

2012-01-29T01:49:51-08:00

Ted Stevens was absolutely right. And not only that, he was also a visionary at the time that he said it!

The Internet really is becoming a series of tubes, the most obvious one being YouTube. And thanks to its success, numerous niche tubes are shooting up like mushrooms after the rain.
PornoTube is probably the best case showcase of that and a vast sea of other copycats aren't far behind, even cases like BeastTube. There are over 4000 domain names ending with "tube" currently registered - and that number is still rising.

One copy of the original after another, only much more differentiated and each covering its own corner of distributable video content. I wouldn't be surprised to see SouthParkTube, LostTube or simply TVSeriesTube in the not so distant future.

The good old Internet classic Series of Tubes by P. Holcomb (The Bold Headed Broadcast) and Gavin (13tongimp.com).

However, to justify the reputation of Internet as a series of tubes, a significant amount of content has to flow through them. Consider the fact that even flash video streaming consumes a huge amount of total bandwidth if it gets enough viewers.

Since there's a good chance that most of the Internet traffic will be generated by various X-Tubes.com, pretty much the whole Internet becomes nothing but a series of tubes linking one to another, all sending enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

The Capacitor Conspiracy

2012-01-29T01:17:43-08:00

Recently, my computer has been having severe problems with BSODs, random rebooting, failures in the booting process and other annoyances. At first it received a diagnose of "bad power supply" but after taking it apart, noticing no malfunctions and doing some additional googling, the real cause of problems was determined... bad motherboard capacitors!

And not only that, a site called Badcaps.net was dedicated specifically to problems like mine. In fact, my motherboard had (and still has) all bad caps symptoms described there. And not only that, all my previous PC problems probably originate from this very issue.

So, from a technical point of view there are two ways to solve this problem: either replace all capacitors or find an old Socket A replacement board for my 32-bit Athlon processor.

I was intrigued to learn about capacitor failures, I never really considered this could be an issue and ignored my 8 swollen, electrolyte-dripping capacitors so far, thinking it's a normal occurence. It obviously wasn't - and somewhere in the past few years, my wary eyes must have overlooked some crucial information that would point me in the right direction much much earlier.

So, why have capacitors been failing on such a massive scale for the past few years?
The answer lies in a huge-scale Taiwanese tech industry espionage gone bad in 2001 and 2002, in which a copied electrolyte formula wasn't copied all that well at all.

The imperfect electrolyte was then used in the low-ESR type aluminum capacitors, which account for 20% of Taiwanese capacitor production, ranging from motherboards to modems that are distributed throughout the world... which also resulted in worldwide computer problems that would haunt the industry for years to come.

[One of these victims is of course my computer - just write "GSC capacitors," the manufacturer of my board's capacitors, into Google and be amazed at the results.
However, unlike most of PC owners and companies, my capacitors lasted much longer, probably thanks to residing in a cooler environment - I had my PC case open all the time.]

The problem with this capacitor issue is that no manufacturer wanted to admit their problems and they swept it under the rug instead - until someone actually decided to sue ABIT and MSI, popular board manufacturers.
This whole thing also didn't get much press coverage, despite the fact that it's still quite popular and its effect will be felt at least for a few more years.

The REALLY bad news is that devices with these capacitors are still being sold today, mostly in the low-end segment of the market.
So, if you're buying any kind of modem or motherboard, here's a few things to be on the lookout for:

Suspiciously low (cheap) prices
Taiwanese manufacturers
Certain names of Taiwanese capacitor companies (like GSC)

Selling YouTube Services

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

It's obvious by now that YouTube represents a good business opportunity, not just for contents creators but also for all kinds of other entrepreneurs - especially the shady ones.

How did it all start? Different forms of spamming and stats-cheating probably coexisted since its birth but have mutated into a viable business opportunity more recently, most likely fusing together and creating a "unified service" for potential customers. The more YouTube grows the more profitable such ventures become.

Would you like to advertise Hot Brazilian Chicks? Perhaps your channel needs some attention? Or you would just like to see your video on the top charts without risking a ban? Nothing could be easier than that! Just contact your SpamCentral Inc. and let them take care of everything!

And since YouTube is countering spamming by limiting users and preventing execution of automated spamming activity, new measures have to be taken. For example, hiring cheap labor from countries like China. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So-called farmers are of course a common sight in the realm of MMO games, but hadn't quite managed to break into any other market... until now.

Paying a poor Chinese farmer (after giving him a quick lesson) to watch, paste random comments, and rate videos with about 50 accounts (or blatantly spamming a desired message of your choice) doesn't sund bad at all, especially if he's doing it 12 hours a day for about 10 US$.

Of course, you'd need to have a large enough market for the plan to work in the first place. YouTube's not quite there yet, though the first annoyances are already echoing throughout the community. After a long period of outrage at individual "cheaters" the main concern are becoming more organized and clever spammers whose agenda is not only to push someone up to the top but rather turn it into a big business.

Renetto and MrSafety (video viewing advised) recently addressed the community with similar concerns and with everyone jumping on the bandwagon as usual things will hopefully start moving faster in the right direction.

However, there's also an option for individual YouTubers to try to make a buck from watching videos as well: for example, user Infomatic offered his services on eBay for a relatively cheap price of 5.99$. His offer has to be taken with a grain of salt but still managed to produce a public outcry.

So, who's next in line to charge for viewing videos... a bored YouTube employee?

Is YouTube Gaming Its Own System?

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

On one of my recent routine walks around YouTube neighborhood I came across a very unusual finding. The channel of CBS network which recently made some headlines for receiving a ratings boost (supposedly) thanks to YouTube partnership had over 30000 subscribers and wasn't featured on any of the "most subscribed" lists. Of course, it's true that this is just due to a well-known bug that hides you from every top list if you set a private video's thumbnail as your channel picture (CBS's private video in question).

But nevertheless, isn't the goal of every advertiser to gain more exposure, not hide from it? And if you are trying to hide certain parts of yourself, isn't that an indication that you are trying to cover up something that's not very pretty to say the least? I decided to get to the bottom of this at any cost.

Investigation started with looking up facts of CBS's channel:

445,295 Channel Views
35341 Subscribers
7 videos on the Top Viewed list
3 videos on the Top Rated list

Pretty impressive stats for a 2 months old channel, don't you think? Interestingly enough and as said before most likely due to a bug, it can't be found on any of the top (viewed, subscribed) channels lists. But many of its videos can be found on Top Videos lists on a daily basis, in particular the Most Viewed. Everything is working perfectly up to this point, right?

Unreal Subscribers

However, there seems be more to CBS's channel than it appears at first sight. The most obvious case are its subscribers. Suspicion starts with Subscribers window being hidden from CBS 's main channel page - it might seem like an unimportant detail but it does get pretty big when you put the whole puzzle together. Every other channel from NBC to Playboy has a Subscribers spot on its channel - why doesn't CBS have one as well?

The next highly suspicious element are subscribers themselves. The higher you go on the list the more likely it is that random empty usernames will start appearing. Let's take usernames around page 606 for example:

Almost each and every one of them is an inactive account, made for only one purpose: to subscribe to CBS and a preselected number of other channels.
Users like HMuradli, ChoiHongMin, SENS999, tictacman124, arikfin, DrMoTurk and president2005it are just a few of thousands of subscribers with random name, age and country of origin who don't seem to show any serious signs of life.

But the similarity between them goes even further. After closely studying loads and loads of these usernames it became clear that they weren't created only to provide additional subscriber count to CBS but to other channels as well.
In fact, it seems as if the subscribers were created in multiple series, each containing a bundle of (up to 8) channels they all subscribe to - and surprise surprise, guess whose are those other channels? You've guessed it, mostly YouTube's partners and advertisers.

Now, let's briefly review all the facts:

CBS's channel stats and subscribers are well-hidden despite the popularity of its videos.
A large portion of the subscribers on 1768 pages resembles an army of clones, subscribed to the exact same users (as with all clones, this preset changes a bit with each series, preferably adapting to the newest YouTube partners).
In YouTube's defense it has to be told that some of these subscribers are showing signs of low activity, others resemble sleeper cells, being created 6 months ago, left inactive and now suddenly subscribing to some important partners.

Who's Gaming Who

I've been thinking of the most plausible explanation for this little controversy, ranging from apologetic to some pretty wild conspiracy scenarios. However, I have far too little data to be able to jump to certain conclusions and leaving unanswered questions like "who runs the CBS channel, YouTube staff, CBS?" and "how extensively can you micromanage username clones?"

Taking all known facts into account, several options (beside a series of coincidences and excluding a co-op between YT and CBS) seem plausible:

A Youtube employee or a supporter is inflating the views without anyone's consent to "help" either of the parties involved, but even if his/her actions were detected, no action was taken against it yet.
Either YouTube or some of its employees are creating fake accounts (with YT's consent) to make a false impression on CBS and a few affiliated channels that they are actually more popular than in reality, though such cheating on your supposed 'business partners' is very risky.
A third party has made the false accounts for its own needs and used CBS subscription as a hostage for its activities - if the clones get deleted, thousands of CBS subscribers get deleted along with them.
CBS has ordered all of their employees to create a YT account (or two) and subscribe to their channel - or hired a third party for that purpose.
An 'enemy' of YouTube or CBS is preparing terrain for a faux exposé, attempting to smear their public image.

So, Steven and Chad, what exactly is going on here? Am I the only one who noticed this CBS subscriber sham? And more importantly: why doesn't YouTube or anyone else address this as a potential problem?
I'd sure like to get more answers soon.

Making the YouTube Debut

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

Are TV networks getting used to YouTube? Evidently yes. It's not just the fact that CBS claims how YouTube helped boost their ratings - which is actually ironic since YouTube supposed to be the TV killer - but also the general attitude of people in the media business: every time something embarrassing, controversial or significant happens, they all expect it to find its way to YouTube.

Take these two cases as an example (surprise surprise, it's Fox News):

But what does this attitude actually mean? Isn't it derogatory and dismissive in a way, presenting video sites as immature, full of unimportant information and sexually explicit content? It could be, but it also shows a concealed fear of YouTube and its great power - the unpredictable, elusive power of networking that connects everyone and everywhere for an infinite period of time.
They are aware that we're watching them closely, waiting, preying from above and recording each mistake they make and that they have almost no control over it. They should be afraid, very afraid.

Soapbox Beta Preview

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

I've been testing Microsoft's beta soapbox, the feared to-be YouTube's competition one day. My primary objective was to determine how good its prospects for that really are.

First Contact

(Warning: expecting an exciting innovative video site when opening soapbox for the first time will only lead to disappointment.) First impression is certainly somewhat pale: a small, compact interface, divided in two parts: the left portion used for a menu and browsing videos and the right side filled with a large ad banner. The claustrophobic left side offers a somewhat poor picture: most recent and most commented videos, along with the most popular tags.

The next logical step, browsing videos, provides a bit better experience, but still far from a system like YouTube's - and besides the interface is so small that it becomes annoying over time if you don't morph into a precise clicking expert.
Most of the uploaded videos seem to be commercials (Microsoft seems to be putting an emphasis on this) and copied YouTube videos (why am I not surprised?) with a growing segment of user-created videos (a flood of half-naked women do not belong here).

Another interesting observation is that a quarter or more of all videos is either Spanish or French - even though this is just a beta, the non-English speaking segment of the internet seems to represent an opportunity for Microsoft's big video jump. Also, scrolling over a video thumbnail brings up video's description, which could be considered as a new feature.

Upon clicking on a video, the right side turns into a player and the disastrous design of interface is demonstrated again: separate tabs for comments, details, tags and sharing don't seem to be a simple and efficient solution - instead it turns out to be a desperate attempt at covering up copying of every other video site by twisting the interface around a bit.
Videos themselves play smoothly and load very quickly, they also have a neat feature to switch from normal to full-screen size super fast.

Browsing videos by categories is generally the only good way to find anything (tags often prove to be deceiving), so I decided to take a look at that particular feature.
What I found was yet another copy of everything else that's out there with a few changes: we can choose among 15 clear categories, with three being particularly interesting: commercials, politics and movies.
The movies category seems quite interesting since it hints that we can expect an attempt to imitate Google Video's sharing of full-length films.
Same goes for commercials - Microsoft seems to be attempting to create a special niche for advertising as a part of entertainment experience.
Separating politics from everyone else is just as intriguing as well - a separate space for political advertising, just an misnamed category or a try at isolating politics from everything else?

A look at profile page

When seeing a soapbox profile you immediately get a feeling that this is just another part of Microsoft's complete, all-rounded internet experience (in other words: MSN).
Unlike on YouTube, soapbox's undernourished profile page serves more as a condensed collection of information than anything else.

You can subscribe to user's videos and favorites via RSS feed or Live/msn service, which again forces the viewer to use Microsoft's products. This tactic is clearly getting old.

Another not-so-bright move was putting recent comments to the page - a feature that leans soapbox social networking sites just enough to realize that there isn't much social networking in soapbox - at all. Personal tags on the other hand could prove to be a move in the right direction, too bad it's more or less just an adaptation of Delicious' personal tagging to video content.

Uploading Videos

Uploading videos is one of the few good well thought-out things currently available on soapbox.
It's simple, fast and easy: it accepts quite a few formats, without any video duration limit and has a maximum uploading cap of 100MB - a YouTube standard.

But of course, since Microsoft just can't change, it's bound to have an annoying silly detail: confirming that you agree to the Terms of Use, each and every time. This is probably to provide legal backing just in case if copyright problems would emerge.

Another thing you have to agree to before being able to upload is Safety Tips. These "Tips" in my opinion only instigate paranoia and if anything, prevent users from uploading videos since uploading videos is the most dangerous and risky thing according to these tips.

Upcoming features

The soapbox developer team is currently working on a bunch of new features that will certainly better service's current sad state:

They're planning to release a powerful embedded player which is not only able to play a video but also functions as a video menu for selecting and playing videos from a playlist.
Another very promising feature is the so-called Mobile Soapbox: it's a both client and internet-based, an application that you can run on your mobile device to access and view soapbox. The possibilities here are practically endless: I can already see an upcoming connection first with Windows Mobile and CE platforms, then perhaps other mobile platforms, the most obvious ones being Zune and xbox360.

New Clash of the Titans?

The Zune (and xbox360) connection brings us to the next important point: with soapbox that can be accessed via mobile devices, Microsoft would finally have a strong enough weapon to try to take over what it desires the most: the living room.
A true media center with soapbox as the last missing piece of the puzzle would certainly be a lucrative opportunity, especially if it decides to take the Apple approach: by selling products like Zune and free (or paid) services - audio and video distribution.
On the other hand, Apple and Google with YouTube are probably already devising a plan to unleash iTV, accompanied by a video distribution platform to feed it.
In ideal circumstances (that is, if both sides play their cards right and don't screw things up along the way) we should be witnessing a clash of the titans, a real war for the living room (and video distribution in general) somewhere in the first half of 2007.

But realistically things are not looking well for Microsoft: they are lagging far behind in every aspect and only introducing a new set of combined features before everyone else can save it from failing at yet another attempt to dominate your home. Turning soapbox (currently in the gray average of video sites) into that decisive factor could be just what MS needs but at the same time isn't likely to happen. The only problem is that failing at any step of the way would mean a certain defeat.

Google buying YouTube

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

It has happened at last! Google, the only company whose YouTube acquisition I'd support, is buying the media platform. Or as the official PR statement goes:

Google has agreed to purchase online video phenomenon YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock, the companies announced Monday after the close of the stock market.

As stated before, this will bring unimaginable consequences and revolutionize the (media) world at an even faster pace. As for short-term consequences, YouTube will continue to retain its brand and all 67 employees, including the co-founders, and probably manage to get a more autonomous position than other Google departments. Hooking up with Google will bring immediate technological and advertising superiority influx, as well as more solid ground to stand on.

The future now seems more exciting than ever before. Google, Apple, other streaming companies - the direction that YouTube is going to take increasingly seems to resemble world domination. Not bad for a company whose tiny quarters were until recently above a pizzeria. But that's not all.

New deals with record labels

Official PR line:

YouTube on Monday announced new partnerships with Universal Music Group, CBS Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Those alliances followed a similar arrangement announced last month with Warner Music Group Inc.

Three out of four big record labels and two big networks have now made an alliance with YouTube, along with many other smaller players in the field. This will not only wake others up but make them run after Chad Hurley to get a deal.

9.10.2006 - remember this day, for everyone from Mark Cuban and various analysts to disgruntled grim-faced men were wrong from the beginning. YouTube shall prevail!

Yet Another YouTube Idea

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

I stumbled upon a very interesting website yesterday, rabbitbites.com. It is ran by two cute fluffy rabbites named Buns and Chou Chou, who host their own lovely show - the episodes are definitely worth watching. They also have a fresh blog, dedicated to exposing findings of spam-related injustice on YouTube. Since investigating and trying to help to resolve these issues is also a hobby of my own, I thought I'd tag along and contribute some of my thoughts.

And so, the latest thing we've come up with (when I was explaining how I at first thought that a video view is added to the count when you watch over half of it) a possible way to repair the current ratings/views spam:

The answer could be video-time-bound viewing and rating count! This means that in order for a video to be counted as viewed, you would have to watch at least half of it - at that point +1 would be added to the statistics. The same goes for ratings: video ratings would be locked until over half of the video has been played and then unlock to enable the viewer to rate it.
This would no doubt be a step towards a lot more restrictive policy, but it could be balanced by giving the video publisher a limited option to alter these limits to some extent:

the ability to keep the video completely "hidden" - view count doesn't work (like disabled ratings)
to be able to set the percentage (over 50% to full 100%) of the playing video at which the view count would process and rating option would unlock; perhaps joined in a single or two separate settings

I sincerely hope that this can be coded and implemented properly - it surely is a much better option than discovering and fixing the damage that's already been done. Or perhaps they're already working on it. I'll send a mail about it to Steve Chen anyway.

Random Ideas For YouTube

2012-01-29T01:14:53-08:00

I have no doubt that YouTube is constantly working on new approaches and features, but they are planning their next moves in almost complete secrecy, so it's hard for anyone else to figure in which direction they'll decide to go. Unless, of course, you're creative and full of ideas yourself.
Here are some of my own ideas and opinions where YouTube is headed:

General proposals:

Make more buzz for top bloggers and content creators: YouTube community has its own spine, no doubt about it. Everything is attached or at least indirectly related to a number of most vocal users and by promoting this community aspect, YouTube could easily attract much more regular viewers and even produce active users by more openly advertising this community aspect to casual viewers (viewing unoriginal content) who probably aren't even aware of it.
Introduce real-time visualization tools (cluster maps) of YouTube as they exist at digg.com to enable the users to see where the "hot" spots are.
Introduce shared channels that work the same way as shared blogs - each with an administrator and multiple contributors. This would no doubt expand the limits of content creation and solidify YouTube's community, enabling various forms of collaboration.
Add more languages to current selection to encourage non-English speakers to join and create original content of their own.
Build more advanced customization features into user channel pages, such as transparency, possibility to add very limited amounts of javascript/html code - simple, clean and yet fully customized. YouTube might not be focused primarily on being a social network, but this is one of the directions where it's been heading lately. What directors and users increasingly need is the ability to customize their channel pages further, without polluting them with excessive objects and gadgets, just the same as CuStickam does it for stickam.com.
Make an option to enable only video responses to your videos - YouTube is a video sharing site and this feature could be used by users to force others to start making video responses instead of text comments. These video responses could be positioned like regular comments and would have an increased comment value per response.
I would strongly recommend YouTube to either acquire or simply copy one of the sites like Stickam.com or at least establish a strong partnership with it. The live streaming site has a lot of potential and could in my opinion greatly benefit YouTube.
Revamp and emphasize (by advertising and placing more links) the Groups feature! Most importantly: prevent spammers in them from spamming their way to the top, change group moderation privileges and allow them to prosper as video-centered circles of discussion.

Various restrictions:

Subscribtion restrictions: When a user hasn't been active for two weeks (or a month), his account and subscriptions are put into passive mode and don't count as subscribers to someone's videos. To put the subscriptions back to active mode, user simply has to log in and start watching videos again. This would be a good way to prevent or at least make the creation of fake subscribers (to boost one's subscription number) a lot harder.
Change the automated process of flagging, based on hidden "user value"! This value could be determined by sum of various stats: number of videos, subscribers and views. Harming users' videos with a fleet of bots would be severely impacted this way - as almost inactive bots wouldn't have far less flagging power than content creators. Also, a feature to counter improper flagging - unflagging - should be introduced, based on the same user value principle.
Also, a system to keep track of consecutive actions in short time periods should be in place: firstly, to detect possible spam from multiple users or bots (rating spam, comment spam) and nullify it; and secondly, to incapacitate, detect and ban the foes at work (punishment would be based on several other factors as well: number of videos, duration of membership etc.)

Regarding business model:

YouTube doesn't necessarily need regular commercials at the end of their videos. The end of each video could have links and/or small video previews (thumbnails) to videos or channels of YouTube's advertising partners, as an upgrade of the current showing of related video thumbnails! And the best part: the type of advertisements introduced would be based on video's tags and content analysis (that is, if I understand correctly, currently in development).
Many further options spring up from this point: content creators themselves could be able determine what would be linked in the end of their videos, what kind of advertisements would be shown on their channel page and specific video pages and - especially if they would put up their own"PayPal buttons"- get a percentage of revenue from potential clicks (just like Google's AdSense). This way the users would become an autonomous marketing hand of YouTube!
Original content creators could not only put up so-called "PayPal" buttons or products for purchase, either from any existing internet transaction services or YouTube's own one, pinching away a few percents of the transaction, but also - in exchange for more advertising on their page that they would partially have to take care of - but also gain small amounts of profit from the activities mentioned above. Overall, YouTube getting 5% or less of every transaction in exchange for the users' opportunity to make profit is a sound strategy.
Change the approach to embedding videos: embedded videos could have few-second advertisements in the end - or, as previously mentioned, rolling links to videos of advertising partners. They could also offer the ability to rate/comment on a video in the end instead - and take the viewer to YouTube's signup page if he/she isn't registered yet. Once there, subtle advertisements and promotion of notable members would introduce them to YouTube's community. Overall, this is a great way to gain (active) users!