Russell Holly for Geek.com:
Ad revenue from a healthy YouTube channel can be enough to keep an operation of 2-3 people happy, but these new channels are significantly larger scale operations with budgets that can only be reached with the help of some guaranteed monthly cash. To help keep the quality of this new content trending upwards, Google plans to offer certain channels the ability to charge a monthly fee for their content.
I, for one, welcome our new subscription television overlords. You pay for what you want to watch rather than hundreds of channels of bullshit you couldn’t possibly watch even if you wanted to. $1-$5 a month per show. A fair price. What a concept.
Speaking of Google and iOS, another huge one today: Capture, a new app for YouTube that finally lets you — get this — record video from your phone and upload it to YouTube. No, the app hasn’t had this before.
Fancy that.
At first glance, it’s good too! It seems fast and smooth. Yes, Apple removed it as a default app in iOS 6, but overall, this seems like an improvement. Well, except for those pesky ads.
One thing: you inexplicably can’t upload videos from within the app. Yes, you can still do that from the iOS menu system (which oddly still uses the old, no-longer-there YouTube icon in iOS 6), but what a weird decision.
Also, sadly, there’s no iPad version just yet.
Now, what about the Google Maps app?…
Good points by Matthew Panzarino as to why the YouTube app is no longer a part of iOS. While the obvious thing to point to is Apple screwing over Google yet again, remember that in some ways this move is beneficial to Google as well. Namely, they can finally show ads on YouTube videos.
I had been wondering if/when this might happen. Maybe it’s a glitch with iOS 6 beta 4, but I doubt it.
At the end of the day, Apple and Google are obviously at odds with one another. But if Google still offers a service that Apple deems to be the best for its customers, they’ll use it — see: Maps, until iOS 6, and Google Search still being the default in Safari. But I think everyone can agree that the YouTube app hasn’t been good in a long time. It’s now a weak link in iOS. So why not remove it?
The weird thing here is that while they obviously did it with permission, it was Apple and not Google that built the YouTube app (as they did with the Maps apps of old). So you could certainly argue that Apple was more to blame for the app falling into disrepair as other video apps rose in popularity.
Maybe neither side could come to terms on a new app. Or maybe Apple is okay with Google now building their own YouTube app and simply putting it in the App Store. Maybe Apple learned over time that the app simply isn’t that important in the iOS stack.
Or maybe Apple has something else in mind. Remember, in Mountain Lion, there’s an option to share videos to Vimeo, but not to YouTube…
Update: The Verge got a statement from Apple:
Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.
Makes sense — in line with my guesses above. I wouldn’t be shocked to see some sort of “Send video to Vimeo” menu option in iOS in the future.
courtenaybird:
Ebooks Made of YouTube Comments Invade Amazon Kindle Store
From the press release:
The Internet slang of YouTube comments is treated as fresh dialogue, and sold through Amazon.com in the form of massive, self-generated e-books. In an auto-cannibalistic model, user generated content is sold back to the users themselves, parasitically exploiting both corporations: YouTube and Amazon.
Ha. This is a pretty awesome idea.
You’ll notice a certain Google-owned video site isn’t mentioned…
My Morning Jacket live on YouTube at 9 PM ET tonight. Directed by Todd Haynes.
Music. Television. Movies. For whatever reason, Google is really bad at getting content licensing deals done.
Fox, Paramount, and Disney are all now apparently holding out out on the YouTube movie streaming service. The other studios are in, but would like everyone on board for the launch.
We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of Google pre-announcing their iTunes competitor.
“Coming soon.”
