Dear "Quit Facebook Day": The Privacy Policy Won't Lead to World Domination

Similar to how Y2K didn't happen, 2012 isn't going to happen, and the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't going to win the World Series, Facebook will never take over the world. If it's alright with any fearful Facebookers out there, I'm going to put my money on Mark Zuckerberg not wanting to be the world's next supreme dictator.
With the recent uproar about Facebook's controversial privacy policy changes, people have started a "Quit Facebook Day" on May 31.
The group that started this movement has expressed concern over the "Open Graph" concept that Mark Zuckerberg has pioneered. Basically, this will allow Facebook, CNN, and 6 other sites to share the personal information of users, in order to adapt content, advertising, etc. to everyone's personal needs. Unless people think that Facebook wants to overthrow the government-- or for that matter, create a new super-awesome mind-control regime-- I don't see why this is problem. They're improving our user experience and showing the ads we would most likely click on and/or find useful.
Also, another concern is that more user information is being shared with the public, and not just your friends. My view on this is that if you're not OK with your profile picture and personal interests being shared with everyone, you shouldn't be posting them in the first place. If you feel that these pieces of information would embarass you if some people saw them, why would you post them?
All in all, unless you seriously think Facebook wants world domination, don't quit Facebook.

Why Facebook is the Next MySpace (aka Why Facebook is Going Down)

Facebook rocks. Everyone talks about its convenience and social applications, while of course, everybody else has it. But it's going down. Wait. Does this remind you of something? Specifically, the last blue-and-white social network empire?
Back when Harry Potter was still the big thing, George Dubya's approval ratings were still high, and the New York Mets weren't a joke, MySpace rocked too. Everyone talked about its convenience and social uses, and more importantly, everybody else had it.
But boy, did it go down. At this point, Facebook trumps MySpace in users by more than two times.
Now, taking a step back here, does anyone remember why so many people began to shy away from MySpace? Personally, I recall things like bugs, slow wait times, unnecessary features, poor interface, and an overall drop in coolness. Facebook downed MySpace with a simple user interface, geared toward a new generation, that solely performed the age-old task of social networking (age-old because talking used to count as social networking).
However, now the site is error-infested, with new features/layouts that confuse us innocent Facebookers more and more, every day. And to boot, the fact that everyone is joining may be Facebook's downfall. When this happened to MySpace, it stopped being the outlet where rebellious youngsters could come and say, "I'm different. I have this social network and not that one." In other words, when mom and dad join Facebook, it stops being chic and it sure stops being fun.
Still, I'm not saying that Facebook will crash tomorrow. 400 million people can't decide that Facebook sucks, all at once. The fall of an entire empire is a long process. However, every trend stops being trendy after awhile (with the exception of the almighty Google).
But for all intents and purposes, Facebook rocks. For now.

Breaking News: Facebook Downed by Twitter in Number of Users, Bankruptcy Looming

OK, I'm going to tell you right off the top, Twitter has nowhere near the number of users that Facebook has and it'll be a while before Facebook goes bankrupt but we can dream, can't we? Well the deal is, Facebook is the most popular social networking platform on the web and its reputation is expanding faster than Barack Obama's line-up of misguided, utopian legislation.
Everyone wants a Facebook account because everyone has a Facebook account. The most popular social network generally becomes the even more most popular social network because social networking is a narcissistic popularity device, or euphemistically, connecting with as many people as possible.
Becoming a fan of crunchy looking leaves is obviously an attempt to make yourself look like a joker. At the same time, becoming a fan of Michael Jackson is an obvious attempt to make yourself look cool. And posting your responses to surveys is an obvious attempt to make yourself look frisky and likable and witty.
But when a narcissistic popularity device ceases to function just like every single one will eventually, people stray away to the new big narcissistic popularity device. Think about it, MySpace lost to Facebook because of its complex and less-than-sleek features that made operating a MySpace account, way to hard. Now think about this: Isn't Facebook just following right in MySpace's footsteps?
Facebook started as a humble college social network then expanded to cater to the entire world. It's changed the homepage layout several times to "improve the efficiency". They've added little customization features to the status updates and they've even started giving us recommendations on who we should start talking to more. They've stolen every feature that Twitter made and added them to its interface. They continue to develop because they think it's quite productive; after all, it has gotten them into profitable status.
However, if anything, all this feature-loading is congesting the site and being counter-productive. When you type in "facebook.com", you don't see a nice, clean-looking page anymore; you see endless updates from every single friend and every single page you've subscribed to in the middle, each with profile pictures and other pictures and comments and "likes" and buttons prompting you to share these updates.
Then you've got more updates plus robotic suggestions and narcissism-extending requests and events and "pokes" on the side. It's gotten so bad that I'm just not looking at anything anymore. I've become a rebel and switched to Twitter.
Twiter barely has a feature and that's the best part. All you are expected to do is make updates on your status, maybe favorite a few tweets and participate in the number sign phenomenon. You're not obliged to check every photo that your friends have posted and watch all those boring ten minute videos. You don't have to bother joining fan clubs or sending people virtual gifts. There aren't applications. All you do is tweet. And that rocks.
Facebook is over-complicating itself and is failing to be that perfect way to inflict our self-centred comments on others. In fact, the internet as a whole is over-complicating itself. Who knows when Internet will be the outdated weirdo medium that radio and television are, and some other grand platform will take over the minds of our children? Who knows?

The Only Youtube FLV Video Converter that's Actually Working for Me

My search for a way to download YouTube videos as keepsakes began in the heart of the Obama Presidential Campaign, during the Democratic National Convention. I'd heard some pretty damn inspiring words on those few few days and I thought it'd be nice to be able to have Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama and the one and only Barack Obama on my MP3 player (which sucks, by the way). So it started with the search query, "online youtube video converter" on Google, which led me to VideoConvertX.
This site worked great for the longest time and in fact, I was very satisfied. However, when I wanted to download Bill Clinton's big speech, I went through the usual process: paste the URL, input my email, wait for the conversion to finish (indicated by email). However, once I received this very convenient email notice and went to click on the link, suddenly, no download thing showed up. I tried it several times after that, but it continued to fail miserably.
Then, one of my friends advised me to try Vixy.net. It actually worked fine for a few conversions but then halted abruptly. And by the way, don't even bother trying to go to Vixy.net because the site has been taken down, although it remains at the top of most Google queries for video converters.
And after going through a bunch of sites that failed to meet my relatively loose requirements, I've found one that works. Yes. It's Convert For Me. It does what you want a video converter to do; it converts Youtube videos into several formats that you can save onto your computer or portable device.
And for those of you who skipped right to the URL, you missed a damn epic story.

Finally, An Alternative to Google Trends that Actually Works: Find the Web's Biggest Trends with Surchur

I've always thought that somebody needs to make a site that summarizes the big things happening on the web at any given time. Google Trends is an attempt at this, albeit the fact that it is horrendous. Well, I think I've hit the jackpot with Surchur, the most comprehensive listing of the web's trends.
Surchur calls itself, "The dashboard to right now," and rightfully so. The operators of the site provide hourly updates to "The Realtime Board", a list that aesthetically shows what's hot. There are two lists on this board: Hot topics and Catching fire. Hot topics lists what's hot right now, while Catching fire lists what's rising quickly. Meanwhile, each listing is followed by a ranking of its popularity on Surchur itself, the blogosphere and Twitter in addition to where the listing is most popular (the feared Google Trends, Yahoo! Buzz, Twitter Trends, Technorati, Bing xRank or CNN Popular).
Also accessible is a "surch engine", which lists hot URLs from blogs, social networks, news sites, media sites and product listings. Users can influence these results by making comments or voting on how good the URL is. And at the bottom, Surchur conveniently shows all the top results from other big "web categorizers" such as Digg, Delicious, Google Blog Search and Newsvine.
Plus, all this is packaged in a clean, appealing template that makes everything neat and easy-to-read. So Surchur is the site and check it out, it might interest you.

All the Top News on One Simple Page: Most Emailed News

Surfing around, sometimes when I see an intriguing ad, I'll click on it, and sometimes, it'll lead to something good. This time, I hit the jackpot. Most Emailed News (or the cheesily awesome way of doing it, Most Em@iled News) is a very simple website. In fact, there's really only one page on the entire site. It just compiles all of the most emailed news from the major sources, and puts them all into a less than beautiful but very effective list.
It's got the top 5 most emailed articles or videos from 17 different sources, including the likes of the New York Times, Time Magazine, Digg, BBC, Wired, USA Today and Youtube.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Well, that's pretty useless." That's exactly what I thought when I first came across this. But soon enough, you'll realize that not only does this give you the most interesting and relevant news, but it saves you tons of time in contrast to you doing all this manually.
Well, there's not much else to say about Most Emailed News, it's simple, cool and very effective.

Get Invites to the Hottest New Sites with the Original Invite Exchange: Invite Share

When a new and unique website or web service comes out, often, companies will not grant the general public access. Instead, they will employ the invite system, where new users are only allowed in when an existing user sends an invite to them. Unfortunately though, the original invites are generally sent to a list of famous people to raise hype, and so unless you have a circle of famous friends, you aren't going to get many invites very easily. You may be thinking, "Well, why in the world would any company want to do that?" Really, it's quite an effective strategy that is often used by Google to raise hype and test the service.
Still, it's an inconvenience to us humble users, but the good people at TechCrunch have found a way to jump this hurdle, with their new service Invite Share.
As suggested by the name, the concept of this site is simple; different people exchange invites to different sites for everyone's benefit. So when one user happens to get an invite to say, Google's GrandCentral, they can join and then send out invites to other members of Invite Share. And the more invites to GrandCentral he sends out, the higher priority he gets to have when he signs up for an invite to another site. What this means is that when he wants to get invited to a site through Invite Share, he'll "Add his name to the list". This puts his name somewhere on a list of users waiting on an invite, depending on your priority rating.
It seems useful and foolproof, doesn't it? The only problem with this site, as with many others, is the popularity. By this, I mean, there's too much popularity on the receiving end but not enough popularity on the sending end. The waiting lists for some sites get to 1000 users and by the time you get an invite, the service you're waiting for might even be released to the public. However, it's not hard to gain priority; if you've just gotten invited to a private service, throw a party, then, join Invite Share and your priority will skyrocket with every invite you send.
And bear in mind that over 100,000 invitations have already been sent and there are 54 sites you can sign up for, so you pretty much can't go wrong giving Invite Share a try.

Find Ways to Stay Active When School Starts: Find Sports Now

With America's obesity rate rising, somebody had an simple but excellent idea to solve a growing problem. FindSportsNow is the web's largest directory for recreational sporting activities throughout the United States.
People running sports can post the activities as advertisements or listings and those looking for them can find these activities. Listing is free and a good source of advertising so there's no reason users wouldn't want to post.
And for the people who want to get playing, the advantage is obvious. You don't have to spend hours doing Google searches just to find that everything you got wasn't in your city. Just select your state, city and look for the sport you want and you're all set. Listings provide you with the age group, gender, location, description, website, contact information as well as a few photos.
But if the sport you want isn't listed when you search, simply subscribe to the RSS feed for that sport and you'll be notified when a listing does come up. Definitely pretty convenient for if you don't have very much time.
However, the site may not be absolutely overloaded with listings right now, but with the digital age engulfing us, no longer will we use supermarket bulletin boards; instead, we'll be using FindSportsNow.

Online Lost and Found Listings at The Found Bin: Practical?

Everyone loses things. Sometimes its just a pen and sometimes it's a laptop or a diamond ring. But imagine, if a few clicks could get you that item right back, for free. That's the aim of The Found Bin, the internet's largest lost and found directory.
After you sign up, The Found Bin enables you to search among thousands of listings of lost or found items and animals. You can search the directory by specifying the make, manufacturer, color, serial number and even location.
Or if you can't find it when you look at first, you can post the details about your item to increase the chances of re-uniting with it.
But is this idea really practical? I mean, what are the chances that the person who found your item happens to be part of the handful of users that The Found Bin has. And in addition, look yourselves in the mirror (that's right, I'm Canadian) and ask yourselves, is America really nice enough to return your item, especially if it's of value. Plus, does anyone want to spend time broadcasting what they've found for someone (who might just be fake) to claim? Not likely.
But this definitely earns an honorable mention for a good idea. Maybe one day, the world will become a peaceful, collaborative place where everyone will join a huge community of losing and finding and returning items. Maybe one day. But for now, an online lost an found may not work as well as planned.

Top 5 Yahoo! Services that You Didn't Know About

By probably 2003 the world had gone through a major change in web tastes. Yahoo! had been the largest player in the search engine market for a number of years but by that time, Internet users had totally shifted their eyes to Google. And Google has been enjoying unprecedented success with a business model that is defined by simplicity and innovation. No longer would Yahoo!, MSN and AOL's model based on the sheer number of services, be effective.
However, the sheer numbers still are very important and Yahoo! shows us that just because it has way too many, doesn't mean it doesn't have quite a few good ones. Of course, everyone knows that Yahoo! has many great services; there's Yahoo! Answers, Fantasy Sports, Delicious, Flickr, Finance, Calendar, Mail and Search. These pages are legitimately better than most or all of their competitors.
But there are several notable services that linger in obscurity and do not enjoy the same popularity. Not many people will even have a clue that these existed, but they do, and they're quite good too.

5. Yahoo! Food

Yahoo! Food is a part of "Shine", a service mainly targeting women. But really, Yahoo! Food is good for anyone who enjoys food, especially the amateur (and maybe even professional) chefs. This service offers plenty of good recipes as well as videos regarding the tasty subject and a few articles as well. Overall, Yahoo! Food has to rank as one of the better guides on the web.

4. Yahoo! Entertainment

Yahoo! Entertainment encompasses Music, Movies, TV and "omg!" (a gossip site). And what can I say; this has to be the best all-in-one guide to entertainment out there. For Music, you get you're radio, Top 100 Charts and some news too. For Movies, you get reviews, summaries, gossip and more news. For TV, there's the must-watch shows, reviews, TV guides and a bit more news. Omg! is well, pure gossip. Maybe just all the normal stuff but when its all combined into one site and added to by the skillful developers on Yahoo!'s team, the final product is that much better.

3. Yahoo! Autos

If you're buying a new car or just have a love for vehicles, this is the site to go to. Spotlighted by strong new and used car search engines, Yahoo! Autos also includes an in-depth research guide to buying a new vehicle, useful finance tips and calculators as well as a guide to car maintenance.

2. Yahoo! Real Estate

Yahoo! Real Estate has everything you need for purchasing a new home. They can help you buy a home or sell a home, with finance guides, home listings, information on the best neighbourhoods to live in and a few specific guides too.

1. Yahoo! Local

Yahoo! Local is basically a guide to everything situated around you. This service lists literally every business, service or event that you want to find. Whether it's a barber, a mechanic or a restaurant, Yahoo! Local can find the ones nearest to you, complete with reviews and contact information. Of course, every listing is categorized neatly for easy search.

Why Everyone Loves to Hack Websites and Software (But Mostly Google)

Let's face it, everybody's wanted to hack a website at one point in their life. Being able to take advantage of a page's flaws just seems so awesome. I mean, wouldn't it feel good to be able to hack such a huge site such as Google. But this isn't some random coincidence that everyone wants to hack; it's psychology.
Hacking seems extremely cool because you are able to feel like you're in control and you've triumphed and have the upper hand. This is especially true during an economic crisis where everyone's only experiencing loss and loss and loss. And this rule even works if what you've just pulled off was just a little trick that doesn't actually do much.
But also, it's a lot like get-rich-quick schemes (or what I like to call online jobs); you have this little feeling in your heart that this might just result in something absolutely incredible that will change your life. Of course, usually, this doesn't happen but easy routes to success never grow old.
And this isn't just some hunch that I have. It's backed up by solid numbers: On the trusty Google Trends (which displays traffic for major search terms in the Google system), lists the term "hack google" with more search traffic than "Mississauga", the sixth largest city in Canada. But here's an interesting stat; 8 of the top 10 countries in searching for "hack google" are part of Asia, with Indonesia taking top spot. This translates to English being a mere fourth in the languages that "hack google" is searched in.
Now, site owners are relatively smart ;) and they've really exploited the fact that people love to hack. People are labelling virtually every tiny little manipulation as a "hack", this Blogger-related site being a testament.
So people, stop hacking!

Why Twitter is Better than Facebook: How the New Kid is Beating Facebook in Social Networking

The old MySpace and the barely considered Friendster and Hi5 all loom in the background as Facebook takes the spotlight in the social network hierarchy. And for at least another 5 years, the web giant, currently valued at over $6 billion isn't about to take a supporting role (but it seems very ready to take a pay cut).
Still, there is a pesky new kid on the block; but by no means is it a scrawny little midget. Twitter is the real deal and the bright blue birds are making a charge for supremacy (I wish I could say the same about those Toronto Blue Jays). And one day, I believe, Twitter will be the dominating force; here's why:

Simplicity

Every day, people are getting more and more picky about where they waste their time. And the economic crisis doesn't help much either. This is where Facebook's support of videos, photos, notes, apps and everything I haven't yet listed might come back to bite it. Facebook's got a whole bunch of things you constantly have to keep up with while on Twitter, you're not an outlier if you only update your tweets.

Addictiveness

Now, it's really tough to explain this phenomenon but if you do try it, Twitter is much more addictive. One major factor, I think, is its simplicity. But another thing is that on Twitter, you want to post anything creative that you're thinking at any given time while on Facebook, you try to connect over little games and comment on each other's photos. And especially with the mobile age dawning, Twitter's model is a better long-term plan.

Personalization

Last but definitely not least, Twitter is more personalized than its counterpart. Facebook prompts you for a little passive bio and maybe a few "What are you doings?". On the contrary, Twitter's model is based on any thoughts, not just what you're doing; this includes insights, interesting quotes, jokes, anythings. Of course, you can do this all on Facebook too but Twitter is more friendly towards random thoughts.
In addition, on Facebook, you have friends ... well, just to raise your friend count (500 friends guarantees you a spot in the Hall of Fame). However, with Twitter, you only start following somebody, either if you actually know them or if you're truly interested in what they say.

These three important aspects are the things that will give Twitter a slight edge over Facebook.

P.S. I just got Twitter so last I checked, I had 1 follower. You can follow me at: www.twitter.com/jerryzhang222.

Why Facebook Will Never Turn a Profit

Facebook started out roughly five years ago as a social networking site for college kids. Then it expanded to high schools. Now, it's open for everyone, nearly everywhere to join. Today, it has well over 250 million users, using the network in 50 different languages for many different purposes.
Facebook is universally considered a good site, if not one of the best on the Internet. Still, after turning five years old a month ago, Facebook still has never turned a profit. Don't get me wrong, revenues are soaring; Mark Zuckerberg, the genius behind Facebook, projected that earnings would rise 70% this year. On the other hand, the cost of running a social network is not small either. The talent that Facebook must attract, the development it must constantly undergo and the fact that they have to store every photo, video, note and action from every user, even after they delete their account, all contribute to unyielding costs.
They've tried many different advertising models, each to no avail and the number of experiments going on right now is innumerable.
The general problem is that whenever they make an attempt to introduce new advertising, users revolt and create groups that run somewhere along the lines of "I Hate the New Facebook!" or "I Will Not Pay to Use Facebook". And if you don't have users on your side, advertisers sure as heck aren't going to want to give you their money either.
In addition, the developers of this site have made it so lovely and convenient and useful and awesome that barely anyone even focuses on the few ads on the side. And for good reason too; the ads that are normally scattered around the network include mostly the likes of, "I need a man: Install the Zoosk application and meet girls like me!", "Start a Mafia Family" and "Cariacature yourself!". Obviously, these don't cater to the great majority of the population in the world with an IQ over 1.24.
Oh, but what if they reduce costs? Then, there's the same problem, user dissatisfaction. Facebookers are very demanding people; they've been spoiled to an incurable extent. As soon as they even feel like something's worse off than it was before (which basically means any change to the site), the temper tantrums start flooding in. Of course, regular improvements are part of the appetites of the pickiest as well (so basically, you have to improve the site, without changing it...).
All in all, unless they start charging us to use the site, Facebook will collapse just like its rivals.

How To Be as Likable and Charismatic as Barack Obama

This is a really simple process to making yourself just as president-like as Barack Obama. I guarantee you that this will change your life for the better. This is the one rule that Dale Carnegie forgot when he was writing his book (maybe because Obama wasn't born yet).
Trust me, you really, really need this.
OK, fine. Maybe getting custom Obama-rized image of yourself isn't exactly going to help you succeed in life (or maybe it is, who knows?), but still, it will change your life for the better... if only slightly.
So you remember the amazingly designed Obama posters that featured a close-up of his face- with a look of hope- plastered in red, beige and blue. Well now, you can have your own personalized version of the Obama poster with your face in place of the president's (that's right, you get to replace Obama!). Just head over to Obamicon.me, scroll down, and click the huge "Get Started" button for your amazing transformation. From there, you can select from 5 different themes, the Obama theme, the Free Iran theme and a few others.
If you pick one of the first two, you can either choose to use a photo, or take a picture with your webcam (I recommend the webcam). After that, enter the text you want to have on the bottom (Hope, Change, Progress, or just enter your own). You can also adjust the balance of colours meaning that you can select the amount of blue, red and beige that fills your face. Finally, just click the "Take Snapshot" button, and you'll have to do a quick registration at their website and you'll be able to retrieve your snapshot soon after.
So Obama's incredible secrets have finally been revealed. Have a better life, with Obamaicon.me.

Subscribe to All of Your Favorite RSS Feeds- By Email: Feed My Inbox

RSS feeds have never been my thing. I have a knack for forgetting about them and hence, never bothering to check, even though I might like the site I'm subscribed to. Many people just haven't really developed a routine for checking their RSS, despite decent efforts.
This is the idea behind Feed My Inbox, an innovative website that allows you to get email updates on what's happening in any RSS feed. If you're saying to yourself, "Well, what's the point of that? It takes the same amount of time to check your email as it does to check RSS," then this probably isn't the tool for you. This is a tool for people who just can't seem to get used to delving into their RSS feeds every day.
On the other hand, most internet users have developed a routine for checking their email regularly. Feed My Inbox is perfect for people who prefer email over RSS.
When you enter their homepage, you'll see a simple interface; there will be a form asking you to enter the web page that you'd like to subscribe to as well as, obviously, your email address.
As soon as you press "Submit", you'll be sent a confirmation email that has simple instructions: Either click on the first link to be officially subscribed to your desired feed or click on the second link to be unsubscribed.
However, if multiple feeds are found on the page you specified, you will be prompted to select the ones you would like to subscribe to using a checklist. Then, click "Confirm", and you will be sent the same confirmation email.
Subsequent to clicking the confirmation link, you will receive any updates to the feed you subscribed to, by email.
In addition, if you want to be able to manage your feeds in a neater way, you can create an account with Feed My Inbox.
Also, if you manage a website or blog, you can create an easily accessible form that allows visitors to quickly subscribe to your RSS feed by email. (You can subscribe to my blog by email, through Feedburner's widget on the left.)
And if you're hungry for even more convenience, this page provides a "Bookmarklet", which is a link you can add to your bookmarks and click whenever you are on a website that you want to subscribe to by email. This will take you right to the Feed My Inbox confirmation without any entering URLs or email addresses.
Wow, that's a lot of features for such a small service. And that's the magic of Feed My Inbox, the site that lets you convert RSS to email.

7 Alternative Uses for Youtube: Finding the Useful Side of The Video-Sharing Site

Let's face it. Too many of us are spending way too much time on YouTube searching up the latest uselessly silly but somehow trendy videos by NigaHiga or whoever else. Sometimes it is a good dose of entertainment but when you get hooked, spending an hour or even half an hour every day on this video-sharing site, then you have a problem. YouTube should be a utility and not a time-waster so here are 7 good alternative uses for YouTube.

7. Product reviews

Reading a long, grueling product review just to pick out a few important points for 10 minutes is gruesome. On the other hand, watching a 10-minute video on the pros and cons of a product is less so. Trusted media sites and everyday people alike post videos on their favorite and least favorite things, often profane but often useful as well.

6. Getting caught up in the world

If you missed Obama's historic inauguration address, millions tuned into YouTube to watch clips of it in relatively high quality. They weren't captivated by the live moment but it's still nice to know a few good lines from the speech. There are tons of other speeches, news conferences and sporting event highlights displayed on the famed video site.

5. Expressing opinions

Here's my video on staying in Iraq and the dilemma surrounding the Iraq war. Here's another one, a prepared speech on brand name obsession, our adoration of the Abercrombies, Hollisters, American Eagles and Aeropostales. YouTube is a useful way to vent emotions and give honest opinions and insight, receiving public reaction that you could not get from just telling a few friends. Plus, you might get your four minutes of fame.

4. Instruction/Advice

Seminars are constantly posted up that might offer you some life-changing words of wisdom that you'll be able to credit YouTube for. Then there are other simple instructional videos on everyday things, from turning off a calculator to cooling a coke to making your own karaoke tracks.

3. Audio player

If you don't want to listen to radio, don't have an MP3 player, and don't have any tracks stored on your computer, then YouTube is the best option as an audio player. Just type in virtually any song and it's bound to be on YouTube. Most people like it for it's convenience and how easy it is to share music. You can just paste a link and people will be able to hear what you're hearing.

2. Promotion

Organizers might promote their event, start-up bands might promote their CDs, aspiring authors could promote their writing and publishers can promote their websites. Overall, YouTube is a great way to get publicity because no matter what, you are going to get at least 50 views within a month to pretty much any video. That's 100 more eyes on you.

1. Research

There's a lot of intriguing stuff that surprisingly never gets the millions of views that the stupid stuff gets. For a debate, I watched a few videos on gun control. And you can find videos posted by news agency, advocacy groups, companies and more on any issue. But that's not all. YouTube can be Wikipedia in videos and that's what I envision.

Why Testimonials Don't Convince Buyers (Anymore)

Testimonials are now officially useless. But they did have a few years of glory back when these little devices were the big thing that was used to sway buyers into trusting a product. However, since then, the dawn of a new type of testimonial has come to town.
The self-testimonial has become a pretty prominent non-factor in the market of scammer websites. Joe Walker isn't a satisfied customer. Cindy Johnson sure isn't either. They're all invented by some coward who thinks he's cool making fake testimonials. And he is anything but cool because some dumb page filled with these dumb things does anything but convince at least adequately intelligent people to make any purchases.
The rare income that these scammers to get is the few people who are too tempted by the small possibility that they could lose 50 pounds in a month on a guided weight loss program that costs $50. Or maybe its a work-at-home program that costs $20 to get started.
But the vast majority of people have simply stopped going to the testimonial parts of websites. If there's a testimonials page, I advise you to immediately close the window in which there will probably be a series of other pop-ups that activate right when you do this.
The plain truth is that companies or web businesses that have seriously established themselves as a brand that can be trusted, don't need testimonials to re-inforce anything.
This is the same with television testimonials. The multicultural actors dressed in business suits, with no facial expression are more lame attempts at making you think that they are real people.
Here's a perfect example of testimonials obviously created by make-up laiden actors who barely know what they're working for. Trust me, it doesn't just happen that they all look like either weightlifters or half-genuine football dads with their goatees and everything.
It's all stupid and it's all crap. Please. Don't ever fall for a testimonial.

PicApp: An Innovation in Free Images for Blogs

While reading about copyright issues with blogs, I encountered a mentioned website, so I decided to check it out. PicApp offers free images that can be publicly displayed or published on a blog for free (that means you don't have to pay).
The homepage will list the steps: Find an appropriate picture for your blog by typing in search terms as well as selecting from either the editorial (mostly celebrity) photography or stock photography (flowers, grass etc.); then, select it and embed it and your done.
First off, the library of images is updated constantly with a huge number of photos of virtually everyone who has made some type of a name for themself whether it be Adam Levine, prominent singer for Maroon 5, or Guillermo Quiroz, obscure minor league baseball catcher. Sporting events, concerts, political things, film festivals are all covered comprehensively. Food has some good listings and you'll even find results for specific lakes and mountains. However, one complaint that I do have is the fact that say, logos, a particular brand of pencil sharpener or a small business in Maine is not listed. But they're only human. They can't obtain rights to everything and the thousands or millions of photos that they do offer for free publication do make for an incredible resource.
In addition to this, once you've selected something, publishing it is easy. Click on your favorite image and a box will come up showing a preview, listing the HTML code for embedding and even letting you share the photo with others.
On the other hand, it seems that web designers have tried much too hard on the interface. It's painfully slow in virtually every process.
But in an expensive world, it's nice to know that you don't have to pay for a good image.

The Re-Birth of Newsweek: Newsweek, America's Second Biggest News Magazine has Evolved

Newsweek: Now vs. Then





Newsweek has changed. For the better. The little things and the big things alike; they've added stuff, taken away stuff, modified stuff, all with a new aim to be a new magazine with a new direction of making it in a tough economy with creativity and intuitiveness. Without a doubt, it's the right step but even with the total and utter and complete makeover, it'll be tough to find success as a print publication looking for market share in these tough times.

How Newsweek Has Changed

The little things

If you ask anyone at the company, they'll probably say it's the little things that make or break a magazine. Well, Newsweek has re-made its little things into one big masterpiece. They've improved the site design, staying with the same colors and fonts but employing them in a more appealing way.
They've improved the interface with easy navigation and more convenience; the blogs are right at the top, they've put in an "In the Know" section that highlights important articles from other news agencies, they have a "News/Week" bar that shows the important stories from each day on an interactive space.
They've supplemented to the cool factor with a quote bar. But there a much bigger things as well.

The big things

Everything that you could possibly need is now at your fingertips with Newsweek's evolution. The Newsweek Newswire, although only for the featured stories, adds insight from other sources, from Wikitravel to the the Moscow Times to the New Yorker while Newsweekopedia provides a full collection of all Newsweek articles on every topic from economic stimulus to crime. And this is literally every topic ever mentioned in a Newsweek article. In addition, direct links to related stories, related Newsweekopedia topics, the best Wikipedia article and web search results from Live Search provide all you need to become a Newsweekian expert on anything.
Moreover, the weekly magazine is involves readers more, which is necessary because don't we all love being involved with the rise of video games and other interactive activities? You can be involved in a new and improved daily poll section called "Serious Fun". Plus, if you have a Twitter account, your comments on Newsweek's tweets will be played for the whole world to see. They've also intergrated their own digg-like rating tool that comes standard with each of the articles that allows you to find the best articles on Newsweek. The number of "Recommendations" is proudly displayed beside every article while the number of comments is also broadcasted.

And everything they're doing is a huge mission "to create a forum for a continuous – and continuously worthwhile – conversation about key events and issues."

Is it Going to Help?

Every company out there is cash-starved. They have to cut spending in every department. This includes marketing. What does this mean for Newsweek and every other print publication, TV show, website and outdoor signage provider (I don't know what they're actually called)? It means that they can't sell enough ad space unless they lower the prices to the point where they can no longer make profit.
As you know, none of these media companies rely on the $0.50 per issue subscriber rate or even the $5 per issue at newsstands. They rely on the advertisers. Unfortunately, a great majority of advertisers are not going to have any more marketing budget until we're out of this economic crisis. Hence, the basis of this new Newsweek is to fight for what the companies can give up for advertising. Don't get me wrong, it is still a pretty huge trade but while internet ads are popping up everywhere, print publications' share of the cashflow is shrinking.
Still, it is unquestionable that this huge makeover is going to help Newsweek obtain more advertisers than they had last week but the real mystery is whether the magazine will even be able to survive and thrive, with these additional advertisers. Ad rates are lowered and they still have less advertisers than before, despite the fact that their print publication market share has not changed by much. The print publication market is simply shrinking.

On the other hand, back to positives, Newsweek is still a strong news magazine. This is why reader response is better than ever. Instead of the 2-3 "I agrees" on Facebook, they're getting 9-10 detailed responses to big articles. Their Twitter page is doing even better and the new self-integrated recommendations system is beginning to catch on.
At the same time, Google search volume doesn't seem to be seeing much of an improvement although Newsweek is neck-and-neck in terms of volume with its closest competitor, Time Magazine.


And even if it doesn't work out accordingly for Newsweek, let's hope it survives because it's a great read and never fails to fascinate.

6 Reasons to Hate and Never Read Engadget

Ah. Tech blogs. Everyone knows that they have to be up to date in the world of technology so everyone favours one tech blog that they read everyday. Most of the time its either one of the utter nerd tech blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo. I'm starting the non-nerd tech blog movement so read this instead. Or you can go back to your geeky texts talking about RAM, microchips and special wiring. Here's why you shouldn't read Engadget:

6. Owned by AOL

AOL, Google's friendly enemy. It doesn't have any unique features from Yahoo! and MSN and all these copied services are downgraded. I have a very personal hate of AOL and all of its entities and you should too.

5. Way too many ads

An irritatingly obviously and poorly designed ad in the wrong size between every two posts is a bit hefty. And that's in addition to all the banner ads on the sides and banner on the top. Plus, the unbearable marketing of other AOL affiliations everywhere on the page definitely counts as well.

4. Biased because affiliation

Rarely will you see Engadget promoting Microsoft or Yahoo!. After all, they're AOL's competitors ("Microsoft's Profits Sink for the First Time in 23 Years", "Microsoft to Pirates: You're Bad but You'll Still Get Windows 7 Updates").

3. Spams your RSS Feed

Do you honestly need to know about the latest "endoscope" or "Thrustmaster's" latest additions to there line-up of products? And with the tens of geeky staff bloggers (meaning they do nothing but blog about stupid crap and enjoy doing it) as well as a host of guest bloggers, they can pump out 10-20 posts like these out every day. Oh yeah, don't forget about the "USB light" either.

2. Keeps you out of touch with the real world

When you start to get hooked on reading Engadget posts all day, you know your soul has totally died. I mean, you're not even chatting on MSN Messenger, let alone socializing physically. Instead, you read dozens of posts per day on the latest features on the new Palm.

1. Super-geeky

No need for explanation. When your blog is called "Engadget", is a division of AOL and talks about the latest breaking news in the tech world such as Norway's laptop giveways, it just is.