YouTube gets Political Video Texting

Speech Recognition technology has been brought to YouTube through it's new political section called YouChoose. (Is it just me or has there been a significant rise in people taking interest in political change. In the last couple of years, the younger generations are getting more involved in voting and bringing about their opinion to the public. It started with youth campaigns, celebrities and the major impacter player . . . . drum roll. . . . viral marketing. Funny how things always come back to the Internet. ) What YouTube is doing is, they are indexing all the words used in the clip of a speech. It's like what Google does with tagging. When you go to "Face the Candidates" link at the bottom right link of the page. It brings you to YouChoose which half way down the page it has a search box that says, “What did the candidates say?” Then you type in whatever concerns you, like "health care", "Iraq" or "gas" that brings up a list of videos that use those terms. When viewing those videos, the "playback bar will also have yellow boxes on it that you can mouse over bringing up a pop-up showing you relevant dialog contained in that section."
Read more at Beet.tv

Currently, YouTube is limiting recognition to just the YouChoose political videos. We will see if this changes anytime in the future.

This is a great advance in helping people find what they are looking for. Tags put on videos helps to a degree but with this new way of indexing. It could change the way we watch online content. With the more defined searching there is, the more positive and negatives there are. Some viewers will be narrow minded in the content they see but the other side of things is that people won't waste valuable time looking for exactly what they need. Time is money. . .

Other companies attempting this video search is blinkx.

Guess I should start getting politically involved with my blog. . . actually . . . not THAT involved.

[picture taken from Aquate research]

Stanford Youtube Channel Got Oprah

We all know how Oprah is taking over the world. What does she not already own or have? She is connected or apart of some many different organizations and businesses that this recent news doesn't surprise me much.

Oprah Winfrey's 2008 commencement speech is the highlight to Stanford University's newly launched Stanford YouTube Channel. The new site has more than 150 videos of complete video lectures "by Clayborne Carson on African-American history, roundtable discussions on global issues led by John Hennessy, informative clips on innovation and entrepreneurship, microdocumentaries by marine ecologist Steve Palumbi, and other Stanford offerings from iTunes U." There are plans to continue it's growth of free educational content. tch This is the link to Stanford's YouTube channel.

Now, if you are not a fan of YouTube or you want these free educational videos on the go then hook it up your "pod." (I like calling it a pod but it stands for Ipod. If you didn't get it). Just remember to be careful of updating your Ipod. The difference between what is being offered on YouTube versus Stanford's iTunes U is that iTunes has 20 full-length online courses. Go figure. I guess I wasted a lot of gas going to a university in person.

What i take from all this is that Oprah is taking over the world, including the Internet. Stanford is finally entering the digital age. I wasted time by physically going to college when I could have stayed at home and done YouTube University. last, where is this all going. Does this mean we will no longer need physical universities because everything will be online AND when will college students start secretly videotaping class and putting it online. Darn, why did it take me until after college to come up with that idea. I could have started Secret YouTube college trend!

Another thought! Mobile Education!

The Perfect Job & How You Get It

After being a part of hosting the PRSSA Regional Activity at AU this past weekend, I found this week's assigned reading very interesting. It tied into what PRSSA and most professionals try to stress: NETWORK!

It's quite simple yet most of the time it is overlooked by students and professionals. The best resource into learning how to network can be found here. The article by Priscilla March is a step-by-step guide to succeed in networking. I wish I had read this before the weekend, but luckily some of the information I already knew.

Another point to add is students or professionals should have business cards. It may sound overrated but I spoke to some professionals who said it makes the student stand out. If you stand out, then you are one step ahead of your competition.

Looking for work in D.C. is definitely competitive so getting an edge can definitely help the odds of getting employed. This would be where networking comes in as a very big component of getting an edge on the competition.



Knowing someone inside a company or knowing the right people can sometimes land you a job you didn't even know existed. I received my previous internship through attending a party. I happened to comment on how I was looking for an internship at the party. I came to find out that the gentleman hosting the party worked at a firm thatwas looking for a new intern. Next thing you know, I was interning at the firm and getting paid.

Eventually, I needed to spread my wings a bit and move on. Therefore, I am back to hoping for another opportunity to reveal itself. The best way to have that happen is to continue networking wherever I go. If it works, then I will be living the high life.

If it doesn't, then at least I will have met some new people and maybe expanded my amount of connections on LinkedIn!

With all that being said, anyone know someone who wants to hire me?

Tech Spoofing

Who doesn't enjoy a good spoof? How many times do we surf youtube for something funny like someone making fun of company or person?

^{MAC VS. PC}

I have to admit the last techbrand spoof that I enjoyed was the I-Rack that made fun of the many different "I" products that Apple makes. "YouTubers Spoof and Mock Tech Brands" from silicon.com made me realize how the jokes on techbrands seemed to be more popular than celebrity spoofs like Paris Hilton.

I love finding user generated media, authentic media because it gives the brand a more personal and comfortable feel. A brand needs to have a weakness and needs to be able to be made fun of. What brands or companies have not been mad fun of and have continued to prosper? Most companies that are being poked at tend to do well in business. Companies need individuals to make videos about their brands because it's "authentic media" that is being watched. It's knowing an individual spent time and effort to create the content, and is not being paid by a big company to produce it that intrigues users. For example, my favorite spoof on Halo 3:

I'm not sure if Halo 3 really takes over your life as this individual makes it out to be, but if it does, then I would have never known if it wasn't for this video.

How addicting is Guitar Hero now that you can play it on Wii? I find it addicting, but is it spoof worthy?