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Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

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Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#211
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood. They didn't buy it _for_ Google+, they're suggesting that without a Google+ account the experience on a Nexus 5 is so bad that they wish they hadn't bought it.

Is this not the case with all three big players in the smartphone market? I don't have an iphone but my ipod sure seems useless without an account with Apple. It's the same account I use for itunes, apps on my macbook pro, and their developer network. I presume MSFT has a similar situation with a live account. People are just upset because their Google account happens to have some social features to it. I've personal…

> People are just upset because their Google account happens to have some social features to it.

And that isn't worrying to you? People can add you to their G+ circles and there's no way to stay hidden. So Google gets to collect all the information about people you associate with in order to sell your personal info better (to the NSA, among others)

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a - That would be awesome. b - That would be awesome (since I assume you mean the beter direct analogy, which would be that any of my Facebook friend's statements about being there are visible. Now I know who to chat with about restaurants, sights, etc.) c - Can you say strawman? Making up a dystopian future and placing it alongside something you don't like doesn't make the thing you don't like any more like it. Yout…

C - This is more or less already the case in South Korea. You can't really use the Internet without a national ID card.

Do you suspect this was in preparation for the inevitable day when Google would require real names on youtube comments?

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#213
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. Or really creepy. a- Imagine you're going to a real world bookstore. You look at the back cover of a few books and all the reviews are by your Google+ "friends". Customized for you to increase the chances you're buying it. (If ads are going everywhere and you try to ignore them, what will be l…

Just to add to your point a, I'm often less interested in what a friend thinks about a book, and more interested in what another author thinks. Depending on who the review is by, it helps me understand the character of the book. If I'm unfamiliar with the reviewer, I might look into who the reviewer is and read their books. Dumbing this down into "my college roommate clicked like on this, so I'll like it too" degrade…

Then I suppose you will be happy about this youtube change if it helps Google show you an author's comments? Perhaps because you +1'd them on google plus? Or because you bought one of their books?

This change, like it or don't like it, should not be conflated with, "Now Google will only show my comments from my friends." For better or worse, it means Google will know more about connections between people and the things they like. There are plusses (beyond seeing my friends' comments) and minuses to that.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#214
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there has always been people complaining in forums. I've seen steps to recover some of the lost stuff, but I no longer bother. My original account predates the Google acquisition and I lost everything when they made the username -> Google Account transition years ago. Probably my fault because I always decline these things until Google forces the integration upon us anyway.

you can keep saying no. they keep pleading for me to use my "real" name and I keep switching it back to my artist name. its amazing that they host video by artists and yet do not allow the artists to use their artist names. all in the name of stamping out comment wars.

You can make a Google+ page with any name you want. If you have a brand that is not your actual name, you can manage it as a page.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#215

Here's a simple way to improve YouTube. Turn off comments. I have never once, as far as I can remember, read a YouTube comment that was in any way, insightful or provided meaningful information that wasn't better obtained elsewhere. It is a cesspool, and the people who are complaining about needing to login to G+ to leave a comment frankly largely intersect with the set of people who are the problem. Honestly, if log…

Here's an even simpler way to improve youtube comments: ignore comments on videos that are likely to have low quality comments. But there are plenty of videos where that's not the case. There are many excellent scientific and educational videos on youtube, and the comments sections for many of them are excellent. Or were anyway. Periodic videos. Minute physics. Veritasium. EEVblog. Vihart. And so many others. In such…

I watch Vihart's videos, and the comments are full of low signal. All of the high quality comments are from G+ from anecdotal evidence. Let's look at the top ones on her Dragon Doodle video:

"Ever wonder why fractals are called "fractals"? It's because they have "fractional dimension". This idea comes from noticing that when you scale a 2-dimensional object up by a factor of 2, its area increases by a factor of 4, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Sierpinski triangle up by 2, its area increases by a factor of 3. With a normal 2D object, if you scale it up by a factor of 3, you'd increase the area by a factor of 9, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Koch snowflake up by 3, its area increases by a factor of 4. So fractals don't behave like normal objects. They behave as if they have fractional dimension"

First non-G+ comment? "Can I marry your mind, please?" Or this one: "hey, no knock on community colleges, studied at a couple myself I just feel like everyone's giving this girl way more credit than is due, but like I said, that's just me, and it has been made clear by everyone and their mother watching this vid that it is ONLY me. lol"

Or this one: "Yeah, you're totally a dick."

General consensus is, YouTube comments are, by and large, shit. I don't think you're going to convince many people that they're worth it because you can find a few videos that might have slightly higher signal.

Frankly, I would like to see "unification" of comments so when I'm looking at a video, I can see what people are saying about it from around the Web, rather than the same video linked to from 15 different blogs. For example, if some new tech video comes out, and is covered by HN, TheVerge, Engadget, Reddit, etc, I end up having to visit 4 or more sites to see what people's reaction to the video is, rather than having them collated in one place.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#216

Here's a simple way to improve YouTube. Turn off comments. I have never once, as far as I can remember, read a YouTube comment that was in any way, insightful or provided meaningful information that wasn't better obtained elsewhere. It is a cesspool, and the people who are complaining about needing to login to G+ to leave a comment frankly largely intersect with the set of people who are the problem. Honestly, if log…

Comments actually broke for me yesterday after the Google+ comment integration. I suspect it's because they are now generated by a Google Plus hosted javascript, which is blocked on third party sites by default in my browser.

I don't mind.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#217
post #152

"Because you sold YouTube to Google" In all serious though, I think this just further opens up the door for competing services like Netflix, Instagram and Vine to dig in. With Netflix for my serious video watching, and Vine / Instagram for cat videos, I find myself visiting YouTube much less. Requiring a G+ account for comments is the little extra effort that makes me not engage. IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySp…

>IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.

Highly doubt it. Youtube is one of the hardest thing to compete with, even Google search is much easier to go after. Did you read that article about Youtube where Google pays local ISPs to act as a CDN? That is the best CDN money can buy. A competitor without matching performance is going to be largely ignore by both consumers and publishers.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like my YouTube account. I don't like Google+. Stop forcing it on me. I'd be happy with a YouTube that doesn't let me comment but let's me upload videos and everything else I'm doing now. Instead, I'm packing up and leaving. Literally nobody cares. > The irony is your moral might just work. Google will end up with less and less customers if they keep behaving in this way. Only people willing to tolerate Google+ w…

Is this how you treat your customers?

Wait, you actually paid money to Google for Youtube?

You aren't the customer. You are the product being sold.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#219
post #76

Because YouTube comments were completely useless, and now the company is trying to make them useful / interesting. If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way.

"If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way." I keep seeing companies pushing this idea on us, but I just don't get it. The math doesn't work. There are umpty millions of pieces of "content" that might be reviewed. I have at most a few hundred actual friends. (I imagine those who push beyond…

I think you're completely wrong.

I share videos with my friends and family, and seeing their comments at the top of the list of comments on those videos would be great.

Also, I could probably list 1,000 videos that most of us have seen. Never Going to Give You Up. Gangnam Style. The list goes on and on.

And then there's professionally. I know hundreds of people from former and current jobs who tend to be interested in the same work-related videos. Programming languages, stuff related to our domain, technologies we could use, etc.

Re: Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

#220

The longer I use youtube while signed in, the more useless it becomes to me. I have a wide range of interests. If I'm watching the Dead Skeletons - Dead Mantra music video, it's not helpful to have 5 Starcraft 2 VODs in the recommended video list (i.e. I enjoy watching professional Starcraft 2). I'd much prefer recommendations similar to the Dead Skeletons. I've found no way to turn off this recommendation bubble and…

This is the thing that bothers/scares me the most about this balkanization of the internet that's happening. You end up getting forced into bubbles that someone else has decided you belong in. And if you don't know it's happening, you can't even try to stop it. For me, I have not found utility in the things that have been selected for me, so most of these services are becoming useless. All those "smartest guys in the…

The crazy/frustrating part to me is that this takes place "even when you're not signed into an account".
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