"So i'm getting Scroogled?!" Er, probably not...

I think it's fair to say that i'm very happy using my Google products (Mail, Calendar, Docs, Blogger, etc) and they all work rather well. But, I also realise that Google specialise in paid for advertising and that the compromise for having free tools to use is that some may carry some ads, which are usually discrete and I always ignore. So, it was quite amusing to see that Microsoft has started a fairly low level smear campaign to bolster the take up of outlook.com... 

Only problem is, the below video really just looks like something a bored student has put together, or is that the point?

Negative marketing may be the new approach for Microsoft, but as Marketing Land point out this may not be having the effect they were hoping for:

"To date, the Microsoft-backed petition against Gmail’s practices has gained about over 6,000 signatures — equal to about 0.002% of Gmail’s user base."

 Could this be a case of Microsoft telling us what we already know? "Hey, Google does advertising..."

Movember - I've reached the creepy stage...

I think this video sums up how most of the University of Hertfordshire Movember team are feeling at the moment...

It's not too late to donate and make it all worth while though! - http://mobro.co/kriscollins

Socialnomics...

A quick posting to highlight the latest revision of the Socialnomics video from Erik Qualman. I posted the original version a few months back and have used it in presentations as a good intro to social newbies... Enjoy!

Debadge YouTube option now available!

In a surprising, yet very welcome move YouTube has delivered two new functionality improvements. The first is that all videos (above 480p) will have HD preview images displayed wherever the video is embedded. It's a little bit of a surprise that this hasn't been implemented earlier but great news for us as we shoot all content in HD!

The second improvement is far more exciting though, you can now remove the YouTube logo from your embedded videos and all you need to do is add a snippet of code to the end of your URL (?modestbranding=1). What a genius idea from YouTube and a real step forward to open up the YouTube model to people who wish to outsource their video hosting but aren't keen on the branding put on their content.

We just need to look at if we would want to use this on our site now!

Read the YouTube blog posting here.

What a collection of throwbacks!

If, like me you grew up in the 80's and 90's then you'll be equally mesmerised by the video below, a great example of a simple idea, executed well! This is a promo for the Norwegian TV series Gylne Tider... enjoy!

#newtwitter video on YouTube

Interesting overview of the new Twitter layout, if you haven't been moved across yet then this gives you an insight into what's to come. What will happen to TwitPic now?!

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

A quick posting about a video being played on the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) website as part of a series of animations. Professor Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Interesting subject in itself (153,000 views and counting!) but it's the video representation of the talk that really held my interest, well worth a watch and if you like this one then the rest of the series is available online at the RSA Blog.

The future is captioned!

Exciting news from YouTube, they've now introduced their automated captioning service globally! This means that all YouTube videos will have Closed Captioning available!

Brilliant idea, it's just a shame that the speech recognition software only appears to be around 75% accurate which means if you do have video content embedded on your site you'll need to ensure that the transcripts are correct manually. Having pushed one through the system it looks as though we'll be having a fair few hours making corrections!

If you're interested in having a look at some more details check out the YouTube blog posting.