THERE ARE SEVERAL DANCES IN SEQUENCE WHICH ONE COULD DO TO CELEBRATE: YouTube turns five years old today.
I've told this story before, but perhaps not here: back in 2005-06, when I was involved in the rulemaking process before the Federal Election Commission concerning the application of campaign finance law to the Internet -- and mind you, involved in it while representing some of the more tech-savvy and tech-forward clients one could have -- the concept of an online video service that was a free platform both for content creators and content viewers was beyond our realistic comprehension. YouTube's existence was not inevitable, nor was Blogger.com as a free content publishing service for that matter.
We were smart enough to know that any regulation shouldn't be focused on "blogging" but rather should be platform-independent, but all the end regulations regarding disclaimer and disclosure focused on campaigns paying to place their video content online, leaving what some would call a loophole insofar as campaign ads created for YouTube don't have to identify who paid for it or include the otherwise-mandatory "stand by your ad" disclaimer.
All of which is to say that technology can transition from idea to reality to cultural fixture pretty darn fast these days (though, not always: when's the last time you used Yahoo! or Altavista?), and becoming the brand in the meritocratic Internet is quite an accomplishment. So congratulations, YouTube, and let's make some friends today.
Well, I don't use Yahoo as a search engine, but I do most of my fanatsy sports stuff there, and their college football blog is outstanding.
ReplyDeleteThat video is awesome! In the spirit of the day, let me share my own contributions:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/strumcrystrum
In answer to your question, I use Yahoo every day as a search engine. I'm apparently the one person in the world who is not fond of Google. I do like Google maps for satellite images to try to figure out where something is in my town. (ie, look for placement near familiar landmarks.) Although if I need an actual printed map, I still use randmcnally.com. Maybe I'm just old. My daughter would never use anything but Google.
ReplyDeleteI've got nothing against Google but the fact that they "accidentally" collected all this user data from wifi does not sit well with me at all http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Street-View-Accidentally-Violates-User-Privacy-Via-WiFi-290159/
ReplyDeleteI've often fantasized about using the "I'm not here to make friends" line in real life. Right after I provide someone with a full list of her personality defects and then indignantly defend myself on the grounds that "I'm just tryin' to be real! I'm not fake like you!"
ReplyDelete