Abbie: Fly Hunter

The GooTube Debate

I read a lot of tech news and I listen to a lot of tech podcasts. And I am sick of hearing about how much Google's own Google Video product pales in comparison to YouTube. Yes, Google bought YouTube - that's old news. Also old news is the fact that Google Video has decided - at least for now - to run Google Video and YouTube independent of each other. Many journalists, bloggers, and podcasters that I have respect for have questioned this decision based on the perceived superiority of the YouTube model of video sharing. I think they are missing one major point: whether or not it was their intent, Google's video service caters to a completely different audience than YouTube does.

I agree that as far as video sharing goes, YouTube is vastly superior to Google Video. However, this assumes that Google Video and YouTube have users who are looking for the same level of functionality which YouTube happens to implement in a better way. I submit that while YouTube does sharing well, Google Video is more of a video hosting site. Sure, it includes some basic sharing features such as tags, comments, and the ability to post videos via blog, HTML, or MySpace. However, just by looking at the current layout of a standard Google Video page, one can see that the video takes center stage rather than the sharing features which are hidden in menus along the right hand side. This layout, which the journalists, bloggers, and podcasters referenced above might consider to be anti-social, puts the focus on the video. The social functions are merely secondary to the to the primary function of Google Video: storing videos.

When I shoot a video with my digital camera and want to put it on the internet, I go first to Google Video. There are a number of reasons for this. First, Google places limited restrictions on the size and length of videos that can be uploaded while YouTube restricts videos to 10 minutes and 100 megabytes. Also, as far as I can tell, YouTube only provides a web-based upload service. Google Video, on the other hand, specifically offers a downloadable uploader for files larger than 100 megabytes that is available for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. Besides these limitations, I find the upload procedure on Google Video to be simpler and more user friendly. I also find the video-centered interface of Google Video to be easier to navigate and much cleaner than YouTube's cluttered pages.

YouTube will probably bring in a lot of revenue for Google and I am happy about that. But to say that YouTube is better than Google Video and let that be the end of the story is a disservice to a great product. It all boils down to this: if you want to share your videos and are looking for a social atmosphere, go ahead and upload them to YouTube. If you are looking for a place to store your digital videos no matter what the length or size is and an easy way to embed them in your blog or webpage, please upload them to Google Video.

Considering my general anti-social tilt, I will stick to Google Video.

Why do I have a NuvaRing CD case?

Yoda Is the Coolest

Zoo TV on DVD

Being the crazy U2 fan that I am, I just had to purchase the DVD of the most excellent Zoo TV concert. I watched the first disk today and I must say that the remastering is great - it both looks better and sounds better. I'm anxious to hear it in full-blown Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 but alas I do not have a sound system capable of this (but I know someone who does). The DVD is currently available on Amazon for $15.99 for the two-disk set. I haven't had a chance to explore the second disk yet but I've heard it contains all kinds of extras. Should be cool, I'll report on them after I have had a chance to check them out.

Roger Waters

On Friday night, September 29th, 2006, I attended a Roger Waters concert at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in Tinley Park, IL. It was a great show albeit a little cold and windy. Look for some video and pictures from the show to be posted here soon.

Also, I have added a new addition to the journal: the "What I'm Reading Online..." section. Recently Google updated its Google Reader software and the changes are phenomenal. The new interface is intuitive and the sharing features are top-notch. The sharing feature is indeed how I was able to add the "What I'm Reading" box. Any new item that I mark to share will show up in the box as well as on my Shared Items page. The page should archive all of my shared items while the box located on this page will only list the five most recent.

I am currently running Release Candidate 1 of Mozilla Firefox 2.0. Anyone who somewhat knows me knows that I am an Opera fanboy so it is quite a leap that I have Firefox installed. Not only do I have it installed, I am using it as my primary browser. Blasphemy, you say? Not quite. I would be using Opera but a nasty bug/incompatibility with Windows Vista RC1 causes the Aero interface to deactivate any time a page using Adobe Flash is loaded. Since Flash is so ubiquitous these days, almost any page I go to causes this to happen. Interestingly, this bug does not affect Firefox or IE7. Of the two, I prefer Firefox so that brings me to today. I have to say that many of the new features are welcome additions, especially the inline spellchecker which is very helpful when typing blog posts. I do question the wisdom of making something like inline spell check a "standard" feature and relegating something as important (at least to me) as mouse gestures to "add-on" status. Mouse gestures are one of my favorite things in Opera and while it's nice that I can add them to Firefox, I don't see why it cannot be included by default - how many lines of code could it be? One other feature I miss is Opera's spatial navigation. This is where you can hold down the Shift key and use the arrow keys to navigate the links on the page. I am usually anti-mouse so any feature that keeps my fingers on the keyboard is a welcome addition. One final annoyance is the fact that Firefox 2.0 RC1 does not support Microsoft's new default program model used in Vista whereas Opera added this to the 9.02 release. Seems funny that Opera is quirkier in Vista than Firefox is yet I can make Opera the default browser in the OS but Windows gives me no option to do so with Firefox. I have filed a bug report with Opera so hopefully they will get all of the Vista-related issues solved and I will be able to go back to my favorite browser.