StuffWeLike

The future is not YouTube?

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]

Butt-kicking action screenshots of Far Cry 2 from Leipzig!

Far Cry 2 Preview

Well, there isn’t much to say today. We have laid our hands on some fresh new screenshots for Far Cry 2 from the ongoing Leipzig Games Conference. Screenies are, as you would expect, looking hot and exotic. Far Cry 2, under development by Ubisoft Montreal, will feature wonderful African savannas like the one you see above and below. Check out the pics below – large resolutions assured.

HD-DVD Wins!

In a surprising turn of events Paramount Pictures has come out and said they will release titles on HD-DVD exclusively! This is huge considering the mega Transformers movie will be arriving on the HD format very soon. Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, said that the reason why Paramount decided to exclusively release movies onto HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray is because of HD-DVDs better quality and lower cost. Blades of Glory and Transformers will arrive on HD-DVD this Fall as the first batch of titles.

Dreamworks will also be using HD-DVD as their exclusive format and will be releasing Shrek the Third this Fall as well. Other related studios to use HD-DVD in this announcement are Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. However Steven Spielberg’s movies will not be exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Considering how anti-HD Spielberg is to begin with it’s not that surprising.

So far Blu-Ray discs have been outselling HD-DVD because Blu-Ray has the higher install base as PS3’s are also Blu-Ray players. On the other hand the cheapest HD-DVD player is the add-on for the Xbox 360 which hasn’t sold spectacularly yet.

Looking at Fall’s HD disc lineup for Blu-Ray the major two titles are Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

If HD-DVD does not meet or surpass Blu-Ray sales this Holiday season, studios could begin to question the future of the format. For consumers waiting to adopt a HD format things have just gotten a little crazier.

I own the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, but I haven’t bought a HD movie since I purchased the unit. I can’t tell a huge difference between HD titles and regular DVDs so why pay the extra money per disc? The huge advantage to this next-gen formats is with box sets. Now you’ll be able to fit more hours of content onto a single disc which makes viewing extra features better for everyone.

Blu-Ray is here to stay because Sony is using it on the PS3. As long as the PS3 is bought by consumers, Blu-Ray will always have a stake in this war. If Microsoft truly wants HD-DVD to win they will have to integrate it with the system. I think Microsoft will release this combo system next year if HD-DVD can survive this Holiday season.

[Via Reuters]

BioShock PC Demo is finally out!

BioShock Screenshot

How do you describe this week in one word? Easy. BIOSHOCK. This game has been breaking records, critics are selling their souls to this game, people are killing for it, it’s a bloody sensation. BioShock is easily one of the greatest games of our time, and it’s coming out tomorrow in America, and on assorted dates for the rest of the world.

Xbox 360 gamers have had a fun time with the Xbox 360 demo that came out a while ago, but it’s us poor PC gamers that have to suffer. But not anymore! Word has come from The Cult of Rapture that the demo will be out today, that is August 20! While I can’t seem to find a site with the thing yet (not even Fileplanet), somebody at The Pirate Bay has gotten it. I have no doubt that BioShock is all over the torrenting sites right now.

God, I wish I had a computer that could at least dress decently in front of this game.

Blizzard getting sued by Chinese firm

Yes well, thankfully it’s not the Chinese Government that’s going gung-ho this time. Blizzard Entertainment, the famous makers of the StarCraft series, the WarCraft series, and of course, World of Warcraft are getting sued by Chinese IT firm Founder Electronics Co., Ltd. Blizzard is sharing the pain with IT company The9, which handles WoW in China and Qingwentuwen company, which handles it in Beijing.

The offence? Nope, it’s not enslaving half of the Chinese population, but stealing five of the fonts made by Founder Electronics and using them in World of Warcraft. Awesome lawsuit strategy. Founder claims that they lost “One Billion Yuan” because of the whole thing, seeing as WoW itself snowballed into 7.5 million players. If my conversion is correct, that should translate to $131,648,235. Big money, indeed.

If some people are right, this is the largest intellectual property lawsuit in the land of the dragon as far as damages are concerned. It appears that Blizzard is in quite a spot.

[Via Xinhuanet]