Computers

June 30, 2008

Fred, YouTube Sensation

Filed under: Technology, Internet — Lindon @ 7:06 pm

This video has over 2.7 million views on YouTube. And over 23.000 comments. It’s by YouTube sensation Fred, 14-year old Lucas Cruikshank’s fictional 6-year old with “anger management issues”, as his channel explains – and this is by far not his most popular video. Some of his other videos, done in a high-pitched voice, fast cuts, and about lots of teen problems, are titled “Fred Gets Bullied”, “Fred Loses His Meds”, “Fred Goes to the Dentist”, and “Fred on Christmas”. Adding up the views of his 17 videos, I’m getting the result 45,012,257. The LA Times covers Fred, writing:

<<That an act with millions of fans could escape the popular attention is more evidence of the digital fissuring of our culture. As we ensconce ourselves ever further in our respective demographics, personal and professional, we continue to drift apart from the people right next to us, until even an iceberg holding 4 million tweens can float by unnoticed.

Not that we should’ve noticed. If you’re past a certain age, Fred’s appeal is essentially inscrutable. (...)

“They just think he’s the funniest thing ever,” said Valerie Moizel of the L.A.-based WOO ad agency, which found out about Fred after it conducted kid-centered focus groups for its ZipIt instant messaging product – which later showed up in Fred’s videos. “We watched them watch him – they fall on the floor hysterically laughing. They’re just mesmerized.">>

[Via Waxy.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Fred, YouTube Sensation | Comments]


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More on Google and “Family Guy” Creator Teaming Up For Cartoon Ads

Filed under: Technology, Internet, Google, Search — Lindon @ 10:20 am

The New York Times reports Google will be teaming up with the creator of the US cartoon series “Family Guy” to distribute short original episodes of a show called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy."* The first news of this came in last year already. Instead of creating a new microsite where people can view these episodes, in this model the new cartoons will be shown in AdSense spots, those automated Google ads third-party webmasters include on their sites. From the NYT:

<<Advertising will be incorporated into the clips in varying ways. In some cases, there will be “preroll” ads, which ask viewers to sit through a TV-style commercial before getting to the video. Some advertisers may opt for a banner to be placed at the bottom of the video clip or a simple “brought to you by” note at the beginning.>>

The NYT later says:

<<Each installment is different, but a typical one is titled “Mad Cow Disease.” The clip, which is 38 seconds long, opens with a news anchor reporting on an outbreak of mad cow disease in a dry fashion, detailing the debilitating effects of eating tainted beef. The clip cuts to a shocked male and female cow seated in a tidy kitchen with giant steaks on their plates.>>

Revenue from these ads will then be shared among the webmaster, the cartoon creator Seth MacFarlance (pictured above), the production company Media Rights Capital, and Google. A spokesperson from Google, the company who once said they don’t pre-announce products and whose self-proclaimed core values include “Think and act like an underdog”, is quoted with the majestic statement “We feel that we have recreated the mass media”... but I suppose we’ll first have to see how well this model works.

[Thanks Colin! Photo by Eric Appel with some rights reserved.]

*"Cavalcade” means “A ceremonial procession or display” or “A succession or series,” Answers.com says. It also means “A procession of riders or horse-drawn carriages,” from the Italian “cavalcare,” to ride on horseback.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: More on Google and "Family Guy" Creator Teami ... | Comments]


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Google China’s Universities Overview Tool

Filed under: Technology, Internet, Google, Search — Lindon @ 12:34 am

The Chinese Google Rebang site – a listing of hot searches as well as a general info directory – provides a new research tool for prospective university students in China. The tool is called Gaokao Zhuanti, which can be roughly translated to “Special Subject: College Entrance Examinations.” I asked native speaker Aaron Liang from Canada to provide more background info about this, and he says:

<<When the high school students in China graduate, they need to take a national exam (GaoKao) in June in order to go to college or university. After the exam, they get an answer sheet and start to evaluate their scores. Then they compare their scores with the requirement of each institution in the past and choose which one they want to go. Basically, better institutions require higher scores. This is brutal because first, the grads don’t know their true scores; second, the requirement of each institution remains unclear till they know how many students are applying and what their scores are.>>

Now, Aaron continues to explain, Google introduced this new service as part of Google Rebang to help “the grads to choose the institutions.” He says:

<<I remember that after I took the GaoKao, I got a thick book which contains information of every single college and university in this country, such as their names and locations, introductions, programs they offer, score requirements in the past few years, number of students they want from each province, etc. This service is somewhat like an electronic or online version of it. This is a really cool concept and I found that it was actually pretty easy to use.>>

I asked Google China to tell us more about how this new tool came about. Google China’s Jia gives more details:

<<... the idea came out during one of the team meetings of Rebang project. We wanted to do something for the millions of students who prepare for Gaokao. We did not crawl the data because there is no good sources on the web – they are either incomplete or incorrect sometimes. So we licensed data from Gaokao China, a partner who focused on offline gaokao service. In the future, it would be great if we could cooperate with universities so that they could feed us the data, or even with education departments so that students could search their scores directly at Google.>>


The details page for a university when you click on it from the overview. Here, Tsinghua University and its academies are presented, with links including pointers to related Google China image, video, map, and partner searches (Google-partnered social site Tianya Laiba).

[Via Google China blog.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google China's Universities Overview Tool | Comments]


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Merging Microsoft Outlook Calendars

Filed under: Uncategorized — Lindon @ 12:12 am
Microsoft Outlook 2007 has some useful calendaring features for people with several calendars. One feature allows you to view calendars side-by-side. There are also times when I need to overlay or even merge multiple Outlook calendars.

June 29, 2008

Google Euro Championship Doodle

Filed under: Technology, Internet, Google, Search — Lindon @ 12:25 pm

Tonight, Spain will be playing against Germany in the European foot(as-in-soccer)ball championships final. For this special event – people in Europe are often found partying on the streets when their team wins – Google launched a logo doodle contest a while ago, and today presents the winner on the homepage of Google homepages of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The logo was selected from 3,800 competitors and received over 300,000 votes, Google says, and is drawn by 17-year old Mai Dao Ngoc from Germany. Additionally to having her logo showcased on the homepage, Mai Dao Ngoc was given a computer by Google employee and original logo artist Dennis Hwang during the ceremony.

As for the winning doodle itself, it shows a crowded and colorful cartoon style rendering of all kinds of football-related things. While some in the forum thought it was ugly, I think it looks neat, though it doesn’t work well at all in the small size shown on the homepage... and Google missed the chance to link it to a zoom version on the details page when you click it.

Additional to the desktop homepage, Google also had one winner be selected for a special mobile doodle.

[Thanks Hebbet! Photo courtesy of Google.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Euro Championship Doodle | Comments]


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