Exploring Stuff That Makes Life Great
A couple months ago Microsoft announced Silverlight, some random product to compete with Adobe Flash. Now we’re finally beginning to see Microsoft integrate Silverlight in its websites! The first one that I’ve noticed Silverlight in is for the Halo 3 shorts. To be honest there isn’t anything wrong about this website other than it requires you to use Silverlight. The interface is nice and the video loads instantaneously.
Those are the thoughts of many YouTube users. YouTubers are going so balistic about ads being placed onto videos that Google has temporarily stopped showing video ads altogether! Great job guys! Apparently the research and development team at YouTube really thought this one out…
I don’t have any issue with ads being placed on my videos if I had control over what is being shown and that I can actually make money off of it. If I’m embedding the video onto my website, do I not deserve a cut of the money made off of the ad? My viewers are watching the video – not YouTubers!
If YouTube is to survive, it needs ads everywhere. I don’t even think Google is willing to lose billions of dollars on this site if it can’t pull its act together.
But YouTube fans are so dedicated that they have already built a way to avoid YouTube video ads entirely! This FireFox browser extension called TubeStop specifically eliminates ads from your viewing pleasure.
If YouTube can’t guarantee that sponsors receive viewership, why would they want to advertise on YouTube?
HALO, Halo, halo…? Can you hear me now?
The second live-action short from Weta studios is here. It’s action packed with real Warthog action. The only question is why is Weta releasing these videos? Are these promotional stunts to try and get studios to fund the Halo film project? I’d probably say yes.
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It’s very interesting how they’ve changed some things in the Halo universe. I mean obviously Halo is a violent and serious game, but at times there is comedy. Shooting at a Grunt and having it scream and runaway are the great moments that Halo 1 brought us. I love how these shorts make the war seem real, upclose, and brutal – but currently as they are only fans will truly enjoy them.
How will Weta open up the Halo series to non-gamers? Does it even have to bother to try and get non-fans into this film series considering Halo 2 sold $125 million in its first day.
I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on these questions!
Now, if I were asked to name the most under-rated game I have ever played, it has to be Operation Flashpoint. That remarkable shooter had the capacity to blast the very foundations of FPS gameplay with its kickass GTA3-crossed-with-Battlefield 2 approach. Unfortunately, this gem from Bohemia Interactive never got big enough.
So while Codemasters went on to make a sequel to Operation Flashpoint, Bohemia took off on their own and decided to make ArmA. OF2 lingers in the air for years with only a handful of screenies sometimes, while ArmA was made, released and everything is cool. Since Bohemia wants to look even cooler, they’ve announced ArmA 2. But Codemasters isn’t far behind. They’ve proved that they are actually working on the game with the new teaser trailer they’ve made!
Hit the jump to find out all about what’s going on, as well as a bunch of screenies for ArmA 2.
After the Comic-Con revealation for why Batman will not appear on Smallville Warner Bros. goes out and does more stupid shit yet again. This time it actually makes sense with what the producers of Smallville said, new series/movies are being seen as spin-offs so they don’t have to directly relate to one another. In the comic book world there are tons of series with the same heroes, but with alternative interpretations.
Warner Bros. is appears to be proceeding with the JLA movie (Justice League of America), but it will not feature Brandon Routh and Christian Bale. So apparently Warner Bros really wants Smallville to be destroyed because JLA will feature both Superman, Batman, and many other DC characters teaming up together. Maybe they didn’t want Superman and Batman teaming up in Smallville so their first live-action scene together could be on the big screen. Money makes the world go round and fans will definitely pay to see this.
YouTube is implementing video ads on user videos! Runaway, RUNAWAY! Here’s how their new ads work:
15 seconds into your video another video will overlay on top of that near the bottom, the video will stay up for 10 seconds unless the user clicks on it, by clicking on it the ad will play and the user video will pause, if the user doesn’t click on the video after 10 seconds the ad will disappear. This picture within picture sounds great if YouTube were paying the content creators!
While YouTube is still testing out ads there are a couple of services that already provide income to content producers:
Revver – Pre-roll/Post-roll ads. Requirements: original content, payments sent out after you’ve earned $20 or more.
MetaCafe – Banner ads at the bottom of the video. Requirements: original content, video needs at least 20,000 views and a 3 star or higher rating, payments sent out after you’ve earned $100 or more.
These two services are really the only ones that currently pay for your content. While Revver has less requirements before you receive a payment overall I’ve found it difficult to receive views from my videos on it. I don’t know if that’s because no one really goes onto Revver searching for videos or if the people using Revver aren’t interested in the content that I provided. MetaCafe on the other hand is easy to gain a couple hundred views in about a week, but the requirements of having to receive over 20,000 views and a 3 star rating or higher is ridiculous.
There is one more service that does pay users called Brightcove, but it’s really complicated to get your videos uploaded and just like Revver the videos that I did upload received extremely low view counts.
So while you might not get the view counts on these services as you do with YouTube at least you can start earning money today!
[Via SearchEngineLand]