Tag Archives: user

Secret URL to Subscribe to YouTube Channel

How do you provide a link that automatically takes a viewer to the YouTube page that allows them to confirm a subscription?

It took me quite a while to find this secret URL:

http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=nalts

So you’d replace “Nalts” above with your channel/profile/username. And while you’re at it, subscribe to Nalts. 🙂

Of course the person clicking that URL would have to have a YouTube account, be logged in, and confirm the subscription.

Magical Fix to the Scorned Pre-Roll Ad!

I’ve got it! I’ve got it. YouTube and other online-video sites take notice. Free advice, peeps… to solve the ultimate online-video ad dilemma: pleasing advertisers without pissing off viewers.

Problem: We hate pre-rolls. Google says they work, but 75% of viewers drop like bodies on Fringe. We think we’re watching the wrong video, and most online-video content isn’t worth some 30-second ad. It may work for advertisers, but it’s far from user centric… It’s not a fair ratio. It’d be like being forced to watch 8 minutes of ads before your 22 minute television show (which you may or may not even like). Stats show that

Partial Solution: A smart first-step by YouTube. A split second of the video’s thumbnail shows up BEFORE the preroll. I noticed this for the first time while trying to figure out if CharlesTrippy is engaged or not. And whether ShayCarl is really moving. Anyone know? For those of you who don’t know them, you should know this. By doing daily vlogs they’ve captured a wild audience, and are constantly on top of the most-popular, best-rated YouTube videos. Trippy asked me if I’d consider the daily vlog, but honestly it’s so hard if you work full-time and my life isn’t as interesting as his. But I digress. I sense the 11 advertisers dropping off.

BETTER Solution: New format! a) Give us creators 10 seconds before the pre-roll hits (shall we call it a “Nalts mid-roll,” like my gut?). b) Then hit the 15-second ad. c) THEN on with the show. Viewers won’t adore it, but it will work better. Let me beta it on new videos, and I’ll cut my first 10 seconds with the knowledge that an ad may hit before second 11.

Why It Will Work: We creators now have 10 seconds to convince our audience that it’s worth waiting another 15 seconds for the rest of the “show.” The dropoff rate will be reduced dramatically. The advertiser is “in” the show, not blocking viewers.

Naturally this is not completely user centric. To be kind to viewers you turn off ads. But let’s keep it real here. As long as it’s free, it’s going to have ads. We viewers and we video creators generally don’t like ads. But if they’re effective, we marketers will subsidize the viewer’s experience (so we viewers don’t have to pay for content: so 1990). And we creators like making money. And we viewers don’t want to pay to see stuff. See?

The Online Ad Catch 22

Of course it’s like radar detectors and radars. As soon as the radar detectors get smart, the cops make better radars. Likewise, we get numb to ads, and many shut the InVideos reflexively (I watch my kids do this without realizing it). We stopped noticing the video ad on the top right of YouTube years ago, so now we have dancing ads all over 75 percent of the “above the fold.” It’s a bit much, and not very Googlesque. But the site’s trying to make a profit. Maybe now with Tim Armstrong gone it will change. 😉

So, YouTube… Think about what fails:

Remember when iFilm used to be hot? Like Metacafe, they had pre-rolls but not for the first video you watched. Maybe one in 3 or 4. Once they’re on every damned video, we stop visiting the site completely. I won’t watch a trailer on Yahoo Video EVER because I was once interrupted by an ad to watch the movie advertisement. On the flip side, people liked Revver. But the post-roll ads were not often viewed.

And remember what is kind to the viewer and advertiser:

Hulu sometimes offers a choice of three ads. You can also choose to watch a movie trailer and watch an entire show without interruption. Or watch 30-seconds spread throughout. That’s good. Obviously we have to consider the ratio of ads to content, and hopefully the first video we watch is sans ad. Maybe prerolls (or mid-rolls) can show up later in one’s session, before longer and more valuable content.

Mobile Phones To Be Banned from All Mobile Locations

I heard something noteworthy on the radio (a once-common method of listening to someone else’s MP3 collection while they spoke quite often and rang a bicycle bell when they thought they were funny). It seems there’s a government-sanctioned effort to tackle mobile drivers with the same vigilance as “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers” (MADD). I’m hoping the former finds a more aspirational acronym.

This morning I’m having a Keurig and I discover Uncle Jeff recounting the 5 first miles of his Atlanta commute; he says “It’s a wonder my brain stem didn’t catch fire, or something.”

Hey I’m with you on stopping idiot drivers even if I’m among them. If I turned into a zombie and couldn’t off myself, I’d hope you’d make me proud and put a Red Rider BB-Gun right to my head. Distracted people can be as bad as drunks on the roads. When I’m not home, I sometimes use those roads to transport my offspring. Besides the genetic desire I have to further my species and bloodline, I wouldn’t want a tombstone with a big iPhone decoration on the top.

Look at this bastard for proof:

Then again. What happens if I’m not listening to the radio (don’t ask because I’ve already explained it to you), an audio book, or someone nag me about how hard I am to get in touch with? I’ll tell you what happens…

If my corpus callasum isn’t a raging inferno, I’m reming.

It doesn’t start as a nap, really. It starts with a dreamy gaze into the converging horizon, accompanied by the sweet rhythmic repetition of the road-side bumps designed, ironically, to jar you into wakefulness. Then the eyelids drop for just a moment, which I allow for some necessary liquidation. How long has it been since I blinked? Better catch up on this one. Yes. Just a moment more.

Woahahhhhh. Drool wipe. Look right and left. Adrenaline high. I’m alive. No crash. How long was I out? Am I crazy? Did I fall asleep for a second or ten? Stay focused on the road… stare at that horizon. How long has it been since I blinked?

So we do need some personal freedom, and some stimulation on long drives. But we also need to impose laws on morons that are so intrigued with the latest text message they forgot one swift move of their fingers can bring about a few tons of impact. It’s a balancing act.

If, in the end, I need to stop mobile calls — even handsfree and brainfree ones — then I’ll do so reluctantly. But in return, I want to see a few things on the next episodes of “Mobil Cops”:


  • Guy with no shirt pulls over his 2010 luxury hybrid, and takes insane dash into adjacent yard. After some shaking-camera action, the suspect is later found by a wheezing officer… hiding under an upside-down plastic toddler pool.
  • Business woman wobbling while shouting at cop, swearing she was “saying the f’ing Rosary” in her car and that’s why her mouth was moving.
  • BMW being followed by squad cars as we see one, two, three cell phones get tossed from passenger window into roadside grass.

RSS a YouTube Channel

Some of you aren’t regular YouTube viewers, but have loads of RSS (feeds) available via a reader. I use iGoogle as my reader, for instance, and I have a customized page loaded with RSS feeds from my favorite blogs and websites. Butterfly.

If you prefer to get alerts for new videos that way, here’s a feed URL you can use.RSS it, and you’ll have the latest Nalts video available without having to check YouTube subscriptions.

To change it to a feed of someone with talent, simply replace “nalts” with their username.

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/nalts/uploads?orderby=updated

Battered User Syndrome: YouTube and Online Monopolies

Want your Gmail to replace your YouTube messaging? Sorry- but
here are some pretty thumb icons you can use to rate comments!

Who would have thought the market would be so beholden to YouTube’s inside-out design… half way through 2008? By now, I would have predicted that Web 2.0 would offer us endless options for customizing a video experience using someone else’s player. They can pay for the bandwidth and make ad revenue, but please allow us to customize, widgitize, and private-labelize.  You know- the open source, altruistic dream that borne Revver, and its open source API (whatever the hell that is).

Nope. Maybe that’s in the Web 3.0 upgrade. Not now. No soup for you.

Alas, market dominance means you innovate on your own terms. YouTube and Google were designed to solve a problem its founders felt, but the market didn’t quite know it needed. That works well when you’re in start-up mode or innovating, but can inadvertently spawn arrogance that hardcore users begin to resent. I’ve been an informal adviser to several smaller video-sharing sites, and found it very rewarding when those sites responded to our needs (or at least convinced us they were). Note: I disclose these relationships and they’re not paid — otherwise I’d lose my objectivity on them. And risk hating one less than another.

Now lately I’ve been confronted with some needs that are on the edge of YouTube’s functionality. So I did what any YouTube Partner would do: I went to both my dedicated YouTube technical liaison, Eric, and community representative, Brenda, to solve these issues. 
No I’m just kidding. They don’t take my calls either.

No, friends, we’ve got battered user syndrome.We don’t expect YouTube to fix itself. It’s tired after a long day of work, and we did spill its beer on the counter. So we’ll search for our own tools we can use on top of YouTube… despite it. The bad news is that we’re limited to offering this to people via channels we can control. The good news is that they solve problems that YouTube doesn’t see, doesn’t care about, or views as off strategy. The more bad news is that we don’t know what tools are safe or effective.

Suppose you had a cheese playlist and wanted to randomize it (like the Oreo contest entries) so each video gets a fair shot at being first. Or maybe you’re using the playlists as a free, copyright-violating jute box. Well you can’t do that. You’d want the Randomize YouTube Playlist script (mind you I’m not vouching for these things- I wouldn’t know what to do with them even if I could get past the porn ads and download them).

Then there’s the YouTube Search Script. I suppose that one allows you to customize search and embed videos based on parameters? Then there’s the “YouTube Script” which represents itself as a poor man’s custom YouTube (with that impossible promise, I’m guessing it’s a virus that turns your monitor into a camera and broadcasts your life 24/7 in Stickam). I am having fun playing with Overlay.tv (which is kinda like YouTube’s overlay tools on steroids). But I may do a promotion video for Overlay.tv… so more on that later. And don’t give me crap about promoting them because it’s like a skateboarder endorsing a skateboard brand. It’s cool. It’s why I pimp TubeMogul for free.

Anyway- share your own YouTube hacks below (not the zillion YouTube rippers, thank you). And don’t expect Eric or Brenda to call you back. Nope. Leave it to Web 2.0 to foster a monopoly where we love a website even when it beats us. We deserve the beating, though. We didn’t behave, and the website is under a lot of stress lately.

P.S. I dare someone to turn this post into a video blog and make it look like they’re not scripted. I’ll add a link here if you do. You gotta do it like Pat Condell… with articulation and enough emotion that you don’t look like you’re reading.

P.P.S. Domestic violence is not funny. Go get help, please, if you experience it. I am just using the analogy to exaggerate the learned helplessness we face with some technologies.

Should You Buy an AppleTV? Only if You’re an iTunes and YouTube Junkie

appletv review cheap amazonI’ve had an AppleTV for a while, and I was amused by New Media Minute‘s video report that is almost entirely positive on the AppleTV except for some criticism of the the manual search process (source: webvideoreport).

Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy my AppleTV (Amazon carries the 40GB for $224, 160GB for $324… yes I put in an affiliate link, so sue me). But I only started using it after it was a desk ornament for months.

The bottom line is that if you’re an avid iTunes user (music and movies) and a YouTube junkie, you’ll wonder how you survived without this puppy. If not, you may want to buy a used one (not too less expensive), or wait for a future version which will presumably offer more functionality, content and certainly more storage and speed.

What I dig:

  1. tv in bedGroovin’ with the concept of a device that feeds on existing broadband without another annoying monthly charge. It gives me access to my downstairs Mac via my bedroom television! My wife is not as excited that I’m watching my favorite YouTubers before dozing off.
  2. I find the interface quite elegant (albeit spartan), and a recent redesign improved it and addressed some of my previous criticisms. I chew the remote, though, so I’d like one that was a little more sturdy.
  3. I love laying down while I catch up on YouTube videos, but I mostly resign to surfing the “highest rated” section because it’s so much easier than digging into my favorite creators through the clunky account options. The “top rated” section of YouTube is unfortunately also loaded with a lot of music videos that are simply ads for cell phone ringers, and the animated parodies seem to represent 50% of the top 70 list (oddly it doesn’t list the top 100).

Here’s what AppleTV needs to do before I’d recommend it for broader use…

  1. Make it easier to synch. I’m fairly computer literate but it doesn’t seem to pick up a lot of my media.
  2. Start the clock on my rentals when I start the movie. Not when I rent it.
  3. Improve the selection of movies for sale (it’s as robust as that of a fish & bait store in a small Southern town). I was at a lousy hotel in Nashville Saturday night, and the pay-per-view selection was dramatically better. Mac: Integrate with Netflix or Blockbuster and you’ll have a gem (okay- tough one to work out, but a girl can dream).
  4. YouTube via AppleTV needs a lot of work… four key considerations:

youtube on appletv

  • Allow me subscribe to more than a dozen or so creators. Show me their videos in thumbnails, and sort them by most recent. Keep these populated without as many errors (it’s buggy). To track my favorite creators I needed to set up a new account called appletvofnalts. I’m missing a lot of my favorite creators unfortunately.
  • I’d like to comment. I’m not crazy about the remote/keyboard, but I’d like the option. And I’d like to enlarge descriptions of videos so I can read them without sitting up.
  • Give the search functionality (and “related videos”) the same juice that YouTube gives it on the site. It appears these features are “watered down” for AppleTV.
  • When I find a good creator I want to subscribe. I can’t, so I end up favoriting the video in hopes I’ll remember to subscribe when I’m at my desktop.

AppleTV won’t yet replace your DVR or your cable TV, but it’s a nice alternative when you’re sick of the overcomplicated and slow Verizon Fios media box that doesn’t want to play any of the shows you recorded on the media base that’s downstairs because the poor man’s unit upstairs can’t handle HDTV. I love the access to YouTube, which represents about 80 percent of my use (followed by an occasional movie or television show).

Please take this seriously, Mac. There are a lot of us that want to see this model proliferate, and we’re ready to promote it to our YouTube audiences (for a modest price, naturally… we can’t live on food alone). More users means more content, and I look forward to being able to share recommendations and preferences with friends.