Paul O'Flaherty

Can Revver compete?

Revver is a relative a newcomer to the “video upload” scene, or put another way, yet another YouTube wannabe/competitor.

Revver homepage touts the following:

Revver is the first viral video network that pays. We believe in your talent and your right to share it with the world on your terms. Set your video free.

According to their site, if your a video creator (ie: uploader) they’ll split the advertising revenue generated from sticking an advert at the end of your video 50/50 with you. This, of course, is after the 20% has been removed that is paid to affiliates (video sharers).

Can this model work? Yes it could, however they have one major problem which throws a huge monkey wrench in the works. Google bought YouTube.

Google has some major advantages (besides their size and billions of dollars) that Revver simply can’t compete with.

First off, you know that the big G is going to want to monetize YouTube, after all they didn’t spend over a billion dollars just to loose money. So you can expect them to do something similar soon, except theirs will be backed by Adsense. That means that they’ve got legions publishers users to promote their videos, and armies of advertisers waiting in the wings.

But forget the money side of it for the moment. Revver can’t compete in other areas either.

The Revver interface is terrible. Page navigation is via a tiny and awkwardly placed numerical breadcrumb thingy. It’s neither at the top nor the bottom of the page so is complete useless.

Also, there’s no tag cloud, or an easy way to reach one. The video “previews” are pointless as well, they show one still frame (well that’s the norm) but you cant read the title properly, or see what it’s been tagged as.

All in all it’s not a very user friendly interface.

But perhaps the biggest obstacle that Revver will ever have to surmount is the “coolness” one. Revver isn’t cool, and nobody seams to know about it, at least nobody I know.

YouTube has the name that all the kids know. Revver will have a very hard time building a brand that can even begin to compete with that now. And they’ll be blown clear out of the water if Google start to allow YouTube uploaders to make a little cash too…

WordPress 2.05 – Ronan – Permalinks Issue

So, WordPress 2.05 (Ronan) came out while I was asleep and I’ve just finished upgrading 3 sites to it, including my blog.

Upgrading was relatively painless, although there was a minor issue which could cause you some issues if your not savvy to it: WordPress 2.05 can alter your permalink structure which can leave links unreachable.

When your upgrading (always make sure you back up) the “read me” states:

Before you upgrade anything, make sure you have backup copies of any files you may have modified such as index.php.

Upgrading from any previous WordPress to 2.0:

1. Delete your old WP files, saving ones you’ve modified
2. Upload the new files
3. Point your browser to /wp-admin/upgrade.php
4. You wanted more, perhaps? That’s it!

Now, if you delete all your files, you’ll probably delete your .htaccess file as well. This is okay (as long as you haven’t any handwritten code in there), as you’ll be uploading the default one anyway.

I always do this, and after upgrading go straight into the OPTIONS – PERMALINKS menu and click the “Update Permalink Structure” button. This rebuilds the permalinks file and everything is hunky dory!

I normally have my permalink structure set to date and name based, so that it looks like this:

http://pauloflaherty.com/2006/10/29/sample-post/

However, after upgrading it was set to something different that would have made it be more like (now this isn’t exact as I’m working from memory):

http://pauloflaherty.com/archives/2006/sample-post/

This happened on 2 out of the 3 upgrades I did this morning, so I can only assume that other people may notice this as well.

On another note there are one or two nice things about WordPress 2.05 (besides the security updates) that I quite like.

The first is the fact that plugins are now listed according to the plugin name as opposed to the filename of the plugin. Far more sensible.

Second, and perhaps less noticed is that the Akismet plugin that ships with WordPress now has the spam broken down into pages, so that you can see it all instead of just the first hundred or so. This is an important upgrade in terms of identifying false positives in your spam filter.

One change I would like to see in the Akismet plugin would be to have the links to the pages at both the bottom and the top of each page. It’s a pain in the backside to have to scroll back up to the top of the page every time.

TWiT is safe, and the voice of the TWiT Army

So, TWiT is safe, thank god! I don’t think I could go back to listening to some of the tech “round up” shows I used to.

I’ve exchanged emails with all the TWiTs and we’ve agreed to keep the show going, with some new systems in place to reduce burn out (including my own) and keep the shows fresh.

Also, the TWiT Army decided to rise up and voice their support, and fill in for the missing TWiT podcasts, by doing the first TWiT Army podcast.

Long live TWiT!

Firefox 2 released – 2 browsers in a week?

Firefox 2 has been released and with the release of IE7 within the last 7 days I’m getting a serious sense of deja vu.

Well, if the browser wars are to be refought, Firefox has definitely won the first round as version 2 still remains my browser of choice. I’ve been using it through the beta’s and release candidates and while I recommend EVERYBODY install IE7 for the enhanced security, EVERYBODY should install Firefox 2 and have it as their default browser.

I’m not going to start listing off the features here as I’m sure a million other bloggers have done that already ( official features page ) and I’m not going to launch into a long speech about the benefits of Firefox either.

Instead I’m going to make a simple blanket recommendation of “Download it! Use it!”

WordPress MU 1.0

WordPress MU, the multi user version of WordPress is now at version 1.0 and available for download.

WordPress MU features:

• Everything WordPress does
• Scaling to tens of millions of pageviews per day.
• Unlimited users and blogs.
• Different permissions on different blogs.
• Ambiguity about how to pronounce its name

Laporte: [TWiT] on life support

I got a shock when I read this in my feed reader this morning:

It’s about 80 degrees out – in all likelyhood the last nice day of summer in Northern California – so all the TWiTs decided to play hookey. At the same time. Unfortunately that means there will be no show tonight.

It’s my turn to play hookey next week. I’m off on a Geek Cruise next Friday, and will be gone through November 4, so there will be no TWiT next week either.

I’ll decide what happens to TWiT, the show, when I come back, but at this point it looks like it’s on life support and the heart monitor is flatlining.

Meanwhile, enjoy our first this WEEK in LAW with Denise Howell, and thanks for listening. I’ll put it up on the TWiT feed in place of TWiT later tonight.

TWiT has been on my “must listen” list since the very first episode, and to see what is arguably one of the best podcasts die away will be a great shame and a huge loss to the podcasting community.

Many people (on the twit.tv comments) have expressed an interest in having the show “recast”. I don’t know if that is the correct solution. I feel that the problem may lie with the sheer number of podcasts that Leo is producing and believe that rolling some of them into each other might provide some extra “working room” for Leo.

No matter what happens, if TWiT dies, it will be sorely missed!

Update: Looks like some folks have started a “Save TWiT” blog over on wordpress.com. Go add your support!

Added Google Reader link blog to this blog

Robert Scoble pointed out that Google Reader now allows you to share items from your feeds to a Google hosted webpage.

Well, that webpage also has a feed (in atom) and using that and a little Feedburner magic you can now see the latest from my very own link blog right here. Just click on the “Link Blog” button in the menu and it will take you to a page with the latest entries.

Of course, you can also visit the link blog itself or subscribe to the feed.

As a result of having this every so easy to manage link blog I’ll no longer be doing my weekly round up every Friday (or Saturday )

Upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 today.

Internet Explorer 7 is gold and available for free download from Microsoft.com.

I’m an avid Firefox user (and I won’t be deserting either), but I have been running IE7 since RC1 and on many levels it is far superior to IE6.

When I say superior I mean it in terms of functionality (RSS, tabbed browsing etc) and increased security with tools such as a built in phishing filter that will help protect you from visiting nefarious sites designed to steal your vital information.

As far as I know, IE7 will be pushed out to everybody over Windows Update in the near future, but it won’t be a mandatory install.

I’m going to be recommending to everybody to install it when Windows Update asks them to, but if you’re reading my blog t hen you’re definitely web savvy enough to hurry over to the download site and install it today.

Got a video blog? Get licensed?

(Via Bloggers Blog) The Times is reporting that the British Government is attempting to put the brakes on a EU (European Union) directive that would require all websites in Europe to comply with European broadcasting regulations.

We’re not talking just business here, we’re talking anybody with any kind of video files, and that mean you and I.

Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers” who post material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be licensed as a “television-like service”.

Viviane Reding, the Media Commissioner, argues that the purpose is simply to set minimum standards on areas such as advertising, hate speech and the protection of children.

But Shaun Woodward, the Broadcasting Minister, described the draft proposal as catastrophic. He said: “Supposing you set up a website for your amateur rugby club, uploaded some images and added a link advertising your local sports shop. You would then be a supplier of moving images and need to be licensed and comply with the regulations.”

The major problem, as far as I see it comes in defining exactly what broadcast television is, and under this new “Television Without Frontiers Directive” (who come up with these crap names?) the definition will be extended to

cover services such as video-on-demand or mobile phone clips.

So what constitutes TV? Well according to Mr. Woodward (who’s fighting this btw)

It’s common sense. If it looks like a TV programme and sounds like one then it probably is. A programme transmitted by a broadcaster over the net could be covered by extending existing legislation. But video clips uploaded by someone is not television. YouTube and MySpace should not be regulated.

Well that’s all well and good, but with the high quality of shows by some video bloggers today it’s just not possible to say that if it looks, sounds and smells like TV then it’s TV.

Shows like “The Show with ZeFrank” are of good enough quality that they wouldn’t look out of place in one of those short interlude shows on the Discovery Channel (because we all know Ze’s a bit of an animal right?). Not to mention plenty of other shows which are professionally produced such as DL.TV.

My biggest fear here is that we see a requirement set in place requiring a paid licence that most video bloggers won’t be able to afford, especially the teens.

So, how do we handle this? Well how about simply saying that if the show was created primarily for broadcast over terrestrial/satellite TV then it’s a “TV show”!

If it is later rebroadcast (or simultaneously) or made available for download on the internet or to your mobile phone then it should come under the regulations.

If it doesn’t well then that’s it. What do you guys think, and who if anybody, can we voice our opinion to?

VIMICRO USB PC 301x Drivers

Yes! I finally found the driver for that blasted webcam! I searched for hours on the web but couldn’t find anything except 2 forum posts by the same guy also looking for drivers for the camera.

My mate eventually tracked down the original cd driver disk to the camera in his house. It was one of those mini-cd’s and funnily enough it actually is a disk for MSN Messenger 6.2.

The disc confirms that the camera is a Microsoft product, yet I was unable to find any mention of it anywhere on Microsofts sites.

Anyway, once I’d installed the drivers from the disk, I then did a search for updated versions on the web. That was pointless as there aren’t any.

Anyway, if you have one of these cameras, a VIMICRO USB PC 301x, then you can download a set of drivers from here  (link removed). Windows XP will complain that the drivers haven’t been digitally signed, but you can just install them anyway and they’ll work. Just remember to restart after installation.

UPDATE: 28/07/2009 – Here’s a link to the drivers on the Vimicro site, and here’s a direct link  a detection tool (.Zip file) to allow you download the correct version of the drivers.

Help me identify this webcam!

I recieved the webcam below from a friend today in a a bag of junk. Unfortunately there was no driver disk included and her doesn’t have one for it. The webcam itself is black , with no identifying features except for those show in the picture.

Is no make, model or serial number and no markings to reveal who the manufacturer may be. The only identifying markings are the words “MSN Messenger” on the side and “MSN” on the front. The lens has the following: “640×480 dpi Super AMT pro SERIES Lens = 35 fps -”.

Any help in identifying the camera, or a link to some drivers for it would be greatly appreciated!