YouTube to offer subscription-based contents this year

YouTube, one of the top go-to-sites for video contents, is rumored to be working with a group of channel producers to come up with the first ever fee-based contents. The Google-owned video sharing site is said to launch this project during the second quarter of this year.

Talks of such project have been out in the wild for quite some time now, but it’s only recently that somebody actually had insider info on YouTube’s plan to further monetize the contents on their site.

YouTube

According to the report, the fee-based business model revolves around a monthly subscription which will range from $1 – $5 (a total of USD12 – USD60 in a year). The list of fee-based channels/contents remains to be seen, but the good news is that not all channels/contents will require payment in order to be viewed. Furthermore, the paid channels will only comprise of a small percentage of the total channels in the site (on its early stage at least).

In a nutshell, the proposition aims to provide a top-up for content creators’ ad-based revenue as explained in a statement made by a spokesperson from Google.

“We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models. The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform. There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we’re looking at that.”

With this proposition in place, the company is also looking to increase their presence in the eyes of the advertising peeps, increasing their revenue and those of the creators in the process. Moreover, it is believed that this project can potentially bring on-demand contents such as series, shows and even pay-per-view events to the site, making it easier to for consumers to access it for a reasonable fee.

At the end of the day, it’s all about money-making and seizing every window of opportunity to do so. Though not all of us will agree to this subscription-based viewing/streaming, we have to acknowledge the fact that there are some who aspire to earn a living off of their YouTube videos and that is where we think this project will prove beneficial. But noble as the cause may sound, it doesn’t take away the fact that consumers will still be hesitant to pay for something that’s free to begin with.

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Twitter adds Vine to your timeline

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes we feel that the pictures we share on social media just aren’t enough to tell the whole story. That’s why Twitter added Vine to their sharing prowess.

Vine

Vine lets users record a short video (6 seconds tops) and share it on Twitter. It will be displayed as a looping video on your page with the sound muted by default (to avoid repetitive and eventually annoying sounds). Here’s a sample video that Farrar, Strauss and Giroux (@fsgbooks) shared on Twitter.

At the time of writing, Vine is only available on iTunes App Store and can only be installed on an iPhone or iPod Touch (not all models are supported). Should you wish to try this new feature on your iDevice, you can download the app here.

There were no talks about releasing an Android version of the app, but there’s a big possibility that the team is already in the process of porting the app to non-iOS devices.

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Facebook launches Graph Search

Facebook has announced earlier today a new feature called Graph Search, a search engine for Facebook that lets users search and access information stored inside the social network.


graph search

Mark Zuckerberg wants to point out that Graph Search is “not web search” so it isn’t going to compete with Google or Bing. What it does is it lets you search Facebook’s massive database of people, places, photos, and interests shared on Open Graph, which is a feature responsible for getting information in and out of Facebook like the app you use, pages you Like, recommendations, or photos you comment on.

graphsearch_1

Users can start searching with phrases like “Friends who live in Makati”, “Friends of my friends who work at”, “Photos of my friends in Manila”, or “Single women who like YugaTech.” In case Graph Search can’t provide you with answers, it will display search results from Bing instead. Sorry Google, but you sit this one out.

Graph Search is currently in a limited beta program for US audiences but you can join the waiting list here.

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New MySpace opens to the public

After being almost rendered obsolete by Facebook and Twitter, the dethroned king of social network returns with a redesigned look and is now called the “New MySpace“.

newmyspace_JT

Currently, the site’s landing page shows the actor/singer and MySpace co-owner, Justin Timberlake and his advertisement for his latest single, “Suit & Tie”, featuring Jay-Z. From there users can choose to start a new account or sign-up using their Facebook, Twitter, or old MySpace credentials.

newmyspace

Part of the New MySpace look is the horizontal scrolling of the page instead of vertical, and a music deck located at the bottom of the page which you can use to browse and control online media. Users can choose to share the song they’re listening to, assign it as a profile song, mix tunes, or discover similar music. To put it bluntly, the whole thing looks like a marriage of Grooveshark and iTunes that went social.

If you want to take it for a spin you can visit the site at the new.myspace.com then tell us what you think.

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Instagram will share your info with Facebook

Facebook’s recent acquisition of Instagram has led to the revision of the photo-sharing service’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service which now allows Instagram to share some of your information and contents with Facebook and its other subsidiaries.

The need to revise their previous TOU and Privacy policy was explained on a recent entrywhich was posted on their official blog site.

Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups. This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.

Some of the things that Instagram will be sharing to Facebook are explained in a clause under the Sharing of your Information of their updated Privacy Policy. To save you the trouble of looking that up, here’s what it says there:

We may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of, or that become part of that group (“Affiliates”). Affiliates may use this information to help provide, understand, and improve the Service (including by providing analytics) and Affiliates’ own services (including by providing you with better and more relevant experiences). But these Affiliates will honor the choices you make about who can see your photos.

Other than these minor revisions to Instagram’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, everything else is pretty much the same including your right to your images and the people you chose to see them. These changes will take effect starting on January 16 2013.

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