YouTube Launching Paid Subscriptions to Some Video Channels: Report

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YouTube is set to launch a paid subscription model for its specialist video channels as early as this week, according to a report The move, which has been in development for months, aims to help channels finance a wider range of content such as television shows and films, and will serve as another source of revenue, according to the Financial Times The service will include up to 50 YouTube channels, and subscriptions to each channel will start as low a $1.99 per month, the newspaper reported Sunday, citing anonymous sources In response to the report, a YouTube spokesperson told Mashable , "We have nothing to announce at this time, but we're looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer." Read more... More about Video , Youtube , Subscriptions , Paid Content , and Business Read more »

Is This the NYC Meteor?

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Twitter exploded Friday night with posts about a meteor falling to Earth over the skies of New York City, producing a spectacular light trail. Several people posted or retweeted photos of what they claim was the meteor, though so far none of the photos are confirmed — and one has been debunked as a fake . One YouTube user with the handle VidNightLive8 posted a video of what appears to be a meteor streaking across the sky, though we couldn't confirm its veracity. The person who shot the video says he captured it with a small telescope and camera that he typically has set up on weekends. Although he says the meteor passed "quickly," he extended the footage to over a minute by reducing the number of frames per second. Read more »

Dad’s Moving Letter to Gay Son Goes Viral

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Image courtesy of Facebook, FCKH8.com . When a dad overheard his son on the phone with a friend discussing his struggles to confront his parents about his sexuality, the dad left his son this truly touching letter The letter reads: "Nate, I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me. The only thing I need you to plan is to bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now. I've known you were gay since you were six, I've loved you since you were born. Dad. P.S. Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple." The message went viral after a FCKH8.com , an activist organization for gay youth, posted it on their Facebook page . Read more »

The Worst Type of YouTube User

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We've all encountered the type -- those YouTube users who don't even bother watching a video before agreeing (or disagreeing) with all of the comments. Don't feed the trolls ! SEE ALSO: More Sunday Comics Comic illustration by Toothpaste For Dinner . Published with permission; all rights reserved. More About: comics , humor , Sunday Comics , Toothpaste for Dinner , Watercooler , YouTube Read more »

Pepsi’s Coke Parody Helped It Get More Super Bowl Views Than Coke

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A nasty little parody video that Pepsi lobbed at Coke just before the Super Bowl helped it log more Super Bowl video views than its rival. Pepsi tallied up the numbers and found it got more than 500,000 total views than Coke, according Shiv Singh, global head of digital for Pepsi. The figures are tallied below: A decisive factor was "Behind the Scenes at #CokeChase," a video that Pepsi created with Funny Or Die and released Sunday morning before the game. The video, shown below, featured the putative cast of Coke's Super Bowl spot -- actors dressed as cowboys, showgirls and Mad Max types -- trying to get Pepsi Nexts out of a broken vending machine. When someone points out that a Co… Continue reading... Read more »

Tay Zonday Sings ‘Skyrim’ Theme

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Have you been pining for the velvety baritone of YouTube sensation Tay Zonday? Have you also been traversing the wintry holds of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on a quest to defeat Alduin the world-eater and save Tamriel from cosmic doom? SEE ALSO: Tay Zonday Sings 'Call Me Maybe' Well, good. Because the guy who made "Chocolate Rain" a thing hasn't been sitting on his Internet famous laurels for the past five years. No. Read more »

Pulse Gets More Personal, Lets Users Add Their Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Flickr & Tumblr Feeds

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Pulse , the popular news-reading app for the web and mobile, just announced that it is going beyond the standard news sources it currently features and adding authenticated personal social feeds from social sites like YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr and Facebook to its app. As Pulse co-founder Akshay Kothari told me yesterday, this is Pulse’s first real foray into social feeds. While Pulse already offered some aggregated social feeds from the likes of Reddit, Instagram (top photos), YouTube (top videos), Readability (top reads) and similar sites, this is indeed the company’s first attempt to focus more on authenticated personal feeds and, at first glance, marks a bit of a change for a company that is better known for its stylish presentation of news feeds from news sources across the web. As Kothari told me, though, the original idea for Pulse was always to give its readers one page to see all their content and remove the need for them to go to different platforms to do so. Given that many users now go to the social web to find interesting content, it makes sense for Pulse to also move into this direction. While this definitely makes the service more personal, it doesn’t yet make it social. Pulse isn’t bringing in likes and comments from the social feeds it now aggregates, though the company will obviously iterate on its current implementations and may bring these features to the app later. One nice feature of Pulse’s system is that users will only have to log in to their respective accounts once and their feeds will then appear everywhere a user accesses Pulse, including its recently launched web app. Read more »

Pulse Gets More Personal, Lets Users Add Their Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Flickr & Tumblr Feeds

on
Thumbnail

Pulse , the popular news-reading app for the web and mobile, just announced that it is going beyond the standard news sources it currently features and adding authenticated personal social feeds from social sites like YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr and Facebook to its app. As Pulse co-founder Akshay Kothari told me yesterday, this is Pulse’s first real foray into social feeds. While Pulse already offered some aggregated social feeds from the likes of Reddit, Instagram (top photos), YouTube (top videos), Readability (top reads) and similar sites, this is indeed the company’s first attempt to focus more on authenticated personal feeds and, at first glance, marks a bit of a change for a company that is better known for its stylish presentation of news feeds from news sources across the web. As Kothari told me, though, the original idea for Pulse was always to give its readers one page to see all their content and remove the need for them to go to different platforms to do so. Given that many users now go to the social web to find interesting content, it makes sense for Pulse to also move into this direction. While this definitely makes the service more personal, it doesn’t yet make it social. Pulse isn’t bringing in likes and comments from the social feeds it now aggregates, though the company will obviously iterate on its current implementations and may bring these features to the app later. One nice feature of Pulse’s system is that users will only have to log in to their respective accounts once and their feeds will then appear everywhere a user accesses Pulse, including its recently launched web app. Read more »

After Gaining D.C.’s Blessing For E-Hail, Uber Launches Its Taxi Service In The Nation’s Capital

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It was just last month that Uber won a big vote of confidence in one of the most important markets it has launched — our nation’s capital. The Washington, D.C., city council unanimously voted to allow a new line of transportation apps that would let users hail rides from their mobile phones. That decision basically gave Uber the green light to continue operating there. But the startup isn’t just standing still in our nation’s capital. Beyond its on-demand black car service, Uber is going a step further in trying to corner the transportation market by launching its e-hail taxi service in D.C., as well. The launch of UberTAXI there will give users the choice of hailing one of Uber’s sedans at a premium, or hailing a cab at about the same rate that it would usually cost, with a few extra charges tacked on. One important difference between UberTAXI and just hailing a cab on the street is the price: In addition to the cab fare — which is taken off the meter and punched into the driver’s Uber app — users will be charged a $2 dispatch fee for using its service. That fee was set by the D.C. Read more »