Microsoft employees poked fun at Google this week in a mock advertisement that was never meant to leave the Redmond, Wash. company’s walls.

Of course, it did, and now it’s available for everyone’s (except Google’s) enjoyment.

The video mimics Google’s Chrome advertisement that attendees of Google I/O, the company’s developer conference happening in San Francisco, saw yesterday. The original shows a bouncing Chrome icon that takes you around all the devices and places on the Internet that Chrome connects you. Microsoft’s version, however, has that same icon showing you all the places Google tracks you and makes advertising revenue off of you.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that the video was, in fact, Microsoft’s doing and that it was intended to remain internal.

Yesterday Google told Microsoft that it needed to remove its YouTube app from the Windows Phone app store. Microsoft created the app independently of Google, which obviously didn’t rub the search giant the right way. Whether this video was a quickly thrown together reaction this or just a product of the general competition between the two companies is unknown. Microsoft and Google compete deeply on many different levels: search products, e-mail services, phones, and cloud storage services.

Here’s the original Chrome advertisement from Google:

Featured image via Microsoft video

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google has asked Microsoft to remove its homebrew YouTube app from the Windows Store immediately, and the search giant requested that it delete the app from Windows Phone users who have already downloaded it.

Essentially, Microsoft built a YouTube app for Windows Phone because Google refused to permit Windows Phone users to connect to YouTube. As Microsoft’s Dave Heiner posted, “Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube … Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do.”

In response, Microsoft created its own YouTube app.

The problems with that, according to Google, are three: the app enables users to download YouTube videos, prevents ads from being shown, and plays videos whose owners have set to only play on certain platforms. Microsoft’s app, Google says, violates the YouTube terms of service, and uses the YouTube logo in a way that contravenes the company’s branding guidelines.

Source: Microsoft

The YouTube app, by Microsoft

This is an ongoing battle that has been slowly heating up since well before January of this year.

The solution would seem to be fairly clear: Google should make a compelling YouTube app for Windows Phone, just as it already does for another smartphone competitor, Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Why it chooses not to is not exactly clear, although it may just have something to do with the fact that, via patent licensing agreements with Samsung, LG, Acer, and others, Microsoft makes perhaps $5 per Android device sold. And it can’t help that Microsoft has hit Google where it hurts on Android and privacy, which, up until a couple of weeks ago, truly sucked.

Microsoft has since released an official statement, basically saying they’d be happy to work with Google to resolve any issues, as long as Google will reciprocate.

“YouTube is consistently one of the top apps downloaded by smartphone users on all platforms, but Google has refused to work with us to develop an app on par with other platforms. Since we updated the YouTube app to ensure our mutual customers a similar YouTube experience, ratings and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive.  We’d be more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs. In light of Larry Page’s comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.”

Surely, we can all get along here?

Google is in no danger of losing its mobile operating system hegemony … as the company announced today, it recently hit 900 million Android device activations.

Add one more Google announcement to the large pile that’s been accumulating all day from the company’s Google I/O conference. Today YouTube announced that it’s rolling out livestreaming to many of its channel partners.

If you’re thinking that YouTube just became equal to Ustream, then think again. The livestreaming feature is only available for channels that are in good standing and have at least 1,000 subscribers. That seems like a fairly reasonable set of stipulations since the resources for livestreaming a video broadcast is more expensive than uploading them for people to watch at their own convenience. Hopefully, this will also cut down on the amount of needless livestreams that pop up, allowing you to sift through only the good stuff.

Here’s some of the key features of the new livestreaming service from the site’s creator blog:

• You get real-time transcoding in the cloud, so you only need to send us your highest quality stream and we make it instantly available in all resolutions and device formats
• You can show multiple camera angles, add closed captions, and insert ads and slates
• Viewers can watch the live stream from any device, get the best quality constantly adjusting to their Internet connection, and can skip back and forth in the live stream

And of course since the I/O conference is in full swing, YouTube is providing developers with a YouTube Live API, which presumably we’ll hear more about during YouTube’s session tomorrow. Users can check the Account Features page to see if their channel is eligible for livestreaming.

Photo via Korosirego/Flickr

The big news at Google’s developer conference I/O might be the music streaming service we’ve all been hearing about for the last year. Google reportedly wrapped up the necessary music partnerships to get it off the ground, according to The Verge.

The new licensing deals include Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group that will enable Google to use their music on YouTube and Google Play. Google also reportedly struck a deal with Warner Music Group earlier in the year. This opens Google to some of the most major players in the music industry — an hurdle any music streaming service has to jump before it can be successful.

The service will likely resemble Spotify, according to The Verge. That is, it will serve up music the user chooses on a subscription basis, as opposed to an online streaming radio model. We are not sure what Google will charge for the service, but the New York Times reports that it will not offer the music free at any level. Spotify, by comparison, costs $10 per month for a premium version.

It will have its own internal competition, however, in YouTube, which many people already use to listen to music throughout the day. A mobile version of the streaming service, of course, would make the product much more alluring.

Apple is also said to be working on its own streaming product that will likely take Pandora’s model over Spotify.

We have reached out to Google and will update this post upon hearing back.

Man laughing with headphones via Shutterstock

After months of speculation, it’s official: YouTube is rolling out a new program that allows some of its premium channel partners to charge a monthly subscription fee for access to its content.

The new paid channel subscriptions are rolling out as a pilot program that includes a handful of partners. Each channel in the pilot will charge a monthly fee starting at $0.99, but every channel has a 14-day free trial period before the payments kick in. YouTube said some of its channel partners will even offer viewers the option of signing up for a 1-year subscription at a discounted rate. Videos from the subscription-based channels will be available across the web, set-top boxes, smart TVs, smartphones, and tablets.

So, why is YouTube rolling this out? Well, it really comes down to being able to offer its channel partners another way to generate revenue and really make YouTube a platform where they can build a sustainable business. In fact, the site  said “one of the most frequent requests we hear from [creators] is for more flexibility in monetizing and distributing content.”

Initially,  53 channel partners are participating in the pilot program, including Jim Henson Family TV, UFC Direct, TNA Impact Wrestling, National Geographic Kids, Rap Battle Network, SmartTV.com, TYT Plus, Recipe.tv, and Acorn TV. Subscribing to all the initial channels would cost about as much as what you’d expect to pay for extended basic cable TV service. But, most people probably won’t want to sign up for more than a few channels in this current line up anyways.

Obviously the YouTube paid channel lineup is no where near as good as cable’s, but imagine what it could be if some of the major TV networks jumped on board, not to mention over a million other channels that are currently generating revenue through the site’s partner program. (For example, $5 per month for a Daily Show/Colbert Report channel, $4 for a Nerdist channel, $3 for BBC America channel, etc.)

The YouTube subscription pilot program definitely has the potential to offer consumers a variety of channels while giving them the option of only paying for what they actually watch. That’s something U.S. consumers can’t do with the current crop of TV service packages. I’m sure major cable execs are shrugging off this announcement, but honestly it could become a real threat five years from now.

YouTube said it plans to roll out more channels in the coming weeks via a self-service platform for qualifying partners. That means channel partners will have the option of flipping on the subscription without having to clear it through YouTube or Google.

Do you think YouTube’s paid channel subscription pilot program will take off? Let us know in the comment section below.

Photo via Korosirego /Flickr

While the subject of “viewer metrics” is typically pretty dull, you can’t really say that when it comes to YouTube.

The streaming video site just rolled out a new “Trends Map” tool that shows the most popular videos people are watching in each geographical region. It’s sort of fascinating to see the differences between regions.

For instance, right now most of the country is obsessed with the season six trailer for HBO’s hit vampire series True Blood (which premieres in June), while the rest of the U.S. is split between a parody video for The Walking Dead by Bad Lip Reading and a Vince Gill/Patty Loveless duet. In my new town of Austin? The most popular thing being watched is a promo video for The CLOOD’s “Life is Just a Game”.

It’s pretty cool and worth some exploring if you have a moment. (Top trending videos embedded below for the lazy types reading this post.)

In its quest to pull in premium content, Google is apparently ready to roll out its first set of paid YouTube channel subscriptions.

The information comes from a Financial Times report over the weekend that suggests the company could be rolling out paid subscriptions for over 50 different premium channel partners. The subscriptions will reportedly set you back about $2 per month, per channel.

We heard rumblings about paid YouTube subscriptions back in January, with the video service rumored to have been in discussions with several of its channel partners about a new subscription-based program. It was also said that those subscriptions would range between $1 and $5 per month, which is in line with the FT report.

Google is currently making plenty of money on YouTube videos, but the company realizes it’s hitting a brick wall when it comes to gaining the kind of content that people desire from other video services. The company has already spent upwards of $200 million to market and cultivate premium content through its channel partners, but so far it’s still not lucrative enough for those partners. The subscription would likely be another source of revenue both for Google and those content creators.

We’re reaching out to YouTube for further comment about the paid channel subscriptions and will update this post with any new information.

Via CNET; Photo via Korosirego/Flickr

This sponsored post is produced by StackSocial.

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It’s difficult to connect with our members of congress, who have busy schedules traveling between their hometowns and Washington D.C., but YouTube is trying to make things a bit easier.

This week YouTube is rolling out enhanced channels for everyone in congress, which will now provide them with enhanced features like live streaming video. The new channels will also allow constituents to more easily follow events, hearings, and such that their congressperson conducts.

The move is nice, especially because the YouTube channels fit into the daily routine of most people — meaning they probably spend some time every day watching videos on YouTube. I’m guessing the same can’t be said for C-SPAN, the public access channel dedicated to government dealings.

Over the last year, Google and YouTube has significantly stepped up its efforts to provide video coverage for the government. It’s encouraged congress members to conduct live Google Hangouts via Google+, which allows constituents to ask questions via video chat. It also set up its own political hub to help collect coverage of the 2012 presidential election as well as provided coverage of the Republican National Convention.

Congress photo via Shutterstock

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Here’s what big technology companies are doing in response:

Twitter

Twitter is the news of first resort, the place where the news often breaks, and this event is no exception. The Boston Police Department is staying on top of the news with its Twitter account, @Boston_Police. And if any have video of the bombings or the period of time immediately preceding the attacks, please contact BPD — they want to see it:

BostonPolice looking for video of the finish line #tweetfromthebeat via @cherylfiandaca

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 15, 2013

Twitter is monitoring the situation and has deleted at least one account that was trading on the resulting confusion and people’s desire to help: @_BostonMarathon, which was promising to donate $1 for every retweet. It racked up almost 65,000 before being deleted.

The top hashtags in the U.S. today are almost all attack-related:

• #prayforboston
• JFK Library
• Saudi National
• Person Finder
• BPD
• CNN
• Muslims

Twitter’s official @Twitter account is staying quiet, but I’ve asked the company for a comment on what it’s doing behind the scenes.

YouTube

YouTube has set up a dedicated page about the explosions via its YouTube Spotlight account/service, which aggregates videos on similar issues and has over four million subscribers.

This particular spotlight brings together 23 videos (and counting) from and about the event, including video of the explosions, the aftermath, and eyewitness accounts. President Barack Obama’s statement to the press will be shown live there as well.

Google

Google set up a Google project page in Google Person Finder, which helps people look for and find loved ones who might be missing in an emergency like this one, specifically for the Boston Marathon Explosions.

Currently, it’s tracking about 2500 records — and rising fast.

Facebook

Facebook is not doing anything specifically about the Boston Marathon, but its recently-added Graph Search makes it easy to look for all your friends in Boston.

Currently, none of my friends do, but VentureBeat writer Rocky Agrawal posted that he discovered via Faceook that a friend and her family are safe. And the image at the top of this page is courtesy of VentureBeat executive editor Dylan Tweney, who was also checking on his friends in Boston via Facebook Graph Search.

The Boston Marathon organization has been updating its Facebook page since earlier this afternoon when it confirmed that two bombs had exploded, canceling the post-race party, and telling runners that the post-race area is still under lockdown.

This is a developing story; please add any updates to the comments, and I will get them in here as soon as possible.

In addition: There have already been multiple instances of false information circulating on social media and other sites — most notably that a Saudi was already being held in custody in connection with the attacks. We’re being as careful as we can be with information. Be careful what you believe.

YouTube is known for doing quirky things, such as adding a rainbow loading bar to the original Nyan Cat video or making its website do the Harlem Shake. So its latest gimmick isn’t a huge surprise.

To celebrate the 57th “birthday” of the first video cassette recorder, YouTube has added a new VHS mode to its video player. Many videos on the site now have a cassette button near the other video settings (resize, video quality, etc.) that, when clicked, allows you to add squiggly lines, static, and a general crappy quality not experienced since the early ’90s. Keeping the video on pause while cassette mode is on interacts with your mouse to produce the effect.

As YouTube describes it on its Google+ page, it allows you “to relive the magic feel of vintage video tapes.” And since I was getting bored with 720 / 1080p-quality videos, I know this is exactly what I want to do.

Check out a sample video here if you’re curious. (You must click through to the YouTube website to see the mode in action.)

Hipset cofounder Mazy Kazerooni with Justin Bieber and Lil Twist.

Celebrities may have goods looks, money, the spotlight, and a fan base, but they don’t always know how to make money off their popularity. Today, Y Combinator company Hipset introduced a multichannel YouTube network that helps musicians grow and make money off their online audience.

CEO Matt Schlicht said that while many artists may have a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they are “shockingly small” on YouTube. Hipset develops these artists by optimizing their metadata, defining their video strategy, scheduling their uploads, setting up collaborations with top YouTubers, and using technology to develop and retain their YouTube audience.

Hipset works with record labels and artist management companies, who use their technology to distribute content and increase their clients’ reach on Facebook. Hipset celebrities include Tyga, Souljaboy, Lil Twist, Daughtry, 3 Doors Down, Rob Zombie, and Ryan Leslie. Schlict said these celebrities have a combined 1 billion views on YouTube and distribution channels to over 35 million fans.

The Y Combinator-backed company first launched as Tracks.by in 2012. Back then, the site was a place where artists could showcase their new work, and Tracks.by helped campaigns “go viral.” It also connected brands with celebrities to facilitate for celebrity endorsements.

As Hipset, the goal is to “hack through the world of online monetization” to optimize the Internet for musicians. In addition to the YouTube network, Hipset offers Hipset Boost, a suite of promotion tools to help artists grow their online audience. In addition to announcing the YouTube network, Hipset also announced adding new features into Boost that enable artists to require fans to follow them on social networks, in order to access exclusive videos.

Hipset has received backing from Menlo Ventures, Y Combinator, Venture51, Matt Mullenweg, Alexis Ohanian, Justin Kan, Brad Hunstable, Josh Elman, Alex Le, Garry Tan, Nils Johnson, David Wu, Harj Taggar, Michael Weiksner, Erik Moore, and Apu Gupta.

Image credit: Hipset Facebook page

What does that look like? Google says that:

• Nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits YouTube
• YouTube’s monthly viewership is the equivalent of ten Super Bowl audiences
• If YouTube was a country, it would be the third largest in the world, after China and India

Google+ is officially Google’s social network, but though it has an estimated 343 million monthly active users, that’s just a third of YouTube. And with YouTube’s built-in sharing, commenting, and content creation tools, it’s often considered to be a social network in its own right — even by Google itself.

YouTube rivals Facebook not just in terms of its total number of visitors, but in terms of engagement and time spent. ComScore numbers have consistently shown that YouTube is the number one video destination online, probably bigger than all its competitors combined, and that its users watch an astounding average of almost 10 hours of YouTube video a month.

Which is why, more than a year ago, Google started integrating YouTube and Google+ … to bring the massive bulk of YouTube users into Google+. And Google+’s more video-oriented features, like Hangouts, Hangouts on Air, and YouTube-video-watching team Hangouts, are features that help to create a value proposition for the most important people on YouTube — the content creators — to delve deeper into the circles of Google+.

What’s driving the massive growth?

Google says it’s “generation C,” the connected generation of young adults that thrives on Connection, Creation, Community, and Curation.

Most of generation C, according to Nielsen, watches little traditional TV, but watch YouTube on “all screens,” including tablets, smartphones, and yes, that big panel in the living room. They don’t just watch YouTube, they create content, curate content for others, and share it with friends and family.

Which, of course, is a perfect demographic for continued YouTube growth.

photo credit: sebastien.barre via photopin cc

Such as the fact that goats — yes goats — were the top trending animal on YouTube this month, beating out the ever-popular cats and dogs. And that Rebecca Black searches spike every week on the day after Thursday and before Saturday.

Essentially, what Google has done is added YouTube to the Trends interface. Searchers can now keep their trend searches web-wide, or limit them to Images, News, Products, and now YouTube. Given that YouTube is a bigger online video destination than perhaps all its competitors combined, including Facebook, Yahoo, and VEVO, you’re getting a massive slice of the online video-watching data when selecting YouTube as a source.

While it’s true that there’s a lot of useless data and noise in Trends, there is, however, some degree of hope in this news: Harlem Shake, as a phenomenon, may be starting to lose steam:

One real challenge with Google Trends is that it only presents data in a relative way. So, for instance, the chart above doesn’t say anything at all about the absolute number of Harlem Shake searches — beyond that fact that there were enough to chart — it simply reveals trends over time. That makes it tough to compare countries, for instance, since it’s unclear whether Brazilians care much about the Harlem Shake or not compared to Americans.

Oh and those goats?

If you’re as lame and oblivious to popular culture as me, you’ll have no clue what that’s all about. This will give you a clue, and probably a few minutes amusement:

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Rather than be bummed out that CBS has exclusive rights to stream all the March Madness college basketball games this year, ESPN has enlisted the help of YouTube star Robbie Novak, aka Kid President.

Kid President is basically a little kid who has a series of videos featuring him dancing, providing advice, and (most notably) criticism of Robert Frost. His latest video (embedded below) with ESPN is about Novak’s picks for the NCAA March Madness tournament, and its the latest example of how the cable channel is luring its audience in despite not having video coverage of the games.

ESPN also had President Barack Obama fill out his March Madness bracket predictions on SportsCenter today, and the self-proclaimed World Wide Leaders plans to provide live audio commentary of the games from ESPN personality Bill Simmons via YouTube, as AllThingD previously pointed out.

Your iPad or Android tablet is really good at a lot of things, but for some things, paper just can’t be replaced, as one French company hilariously illustrates in this ad, which has gone viral:

The ad is by the Leo Burnett agency for a French company, Le Trèfle, which produces — of course — toilet paper. It has already gathered 62,000 likes, including about 10,000 just in the past 50 minutes.

photo credit: bookgrl via photopin cc

Today Vevo, the “web’s No. 1 platform for music,” took a giant step away from YouTube, where its viewers consume most of its content. It took a giant step away from the web, too, and a big step back toward broadcast TV, announcing that Vevo TV will be an always-on broadcast-style music and video channel available exclusively on its own website and apps, plus Roku.

The new channel will feature music videos, of course, as well as live concerts and artist interviews, and Vevo promises exclusives and new, original music alongside old classics. No algorithms here determining what “the audience” wants: This will all be hand-programmed by real humans, Vevo says.

Source: Vevo

Vevo TV on an Android phone

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland said. Old-fashioned, even.

But Vevo has a method in the madness and magic in the formula. When everyone’s watching everything and nothing is particularly “on,” there’s a definite lack of shared experience, shared reality, and shared community that those of us over the age of 30 once knew. It’s the special something that happens when the Super Bowl is on and you know everyone’s watching and engaged in the same event.

“Just like TV!” as VEVO says.

Except, of course, it’s better, because it’s on your phone, your tablet, or your computer. And anything you want to watch but can’t quite fit in just now can be saved, PVR-style, to a “watch it later” playlist. But the TV-like part is that it’s a curated experience that you are, presumably, watching at the same time as thousands or millions of other people.

And that it’s a lean-back experience, as Vevo is at pains to make clear. Where the contemporary web and app focused media scene is lean-forward, “channel” surfing, switching from clip to clip to clip, Vevo TV is intended to be more relaxing, more enjoyable, and more able to consumed in the living room as well as the bus or train. In other words, from millions of frenetic monkeys clicking frantically on billions of 30-second or two-minute videos, to chilling out and relaxing to music and video.

The new Vevo TV is available today for the U.S. and Canada, with additional countries coming, as always, “soon.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google had its first $50 billion year in 2012. But with its massive investments in mobile, someday it might make that much just on the little plastic and metal devices we carry in our pockets.

In fact, digital ad company WordStream has counted no fewer than 21 ways that Google is monetizing mobile, from good-old-fashioned Google AdWords to Groupon-light Offers to augmented reality assistant Google Goggles and, someday, Google Glass.

Google even wants to replace your dead-cow wallet with a shiny digital one. But if you won’t buy what you want with Google Wallet, it hopes to at least guide you to your next purchase with Google Shopper.

Here’s the full list, in visual form, along with WordStream’s perception of how well Google is using its mobile tools to generate mobile money:

photo credit: Louish Pixel via photopin cc

Rumors are circulating that the music service might be packaged alongside Google’s YouTube in an attempt to help capitalize on the video site’s popularity with music videos, according to a Fortune report published today.

The report indicates that the YouTube music service, which already has support from two major music companies, would run on a paid subscription-based model and likely provide users with an ad-free experience. The YouTube subscription service also wouldn’t take away from the company’s efforts to create a digital music locker with Google Play.

I’m a bit skeptical of the idea that Google would create an all-encompassing subscription service for music that would compete directly with streaming music leader Spotify — especially one that removed advertisements. Google is an advertising company at heart, and YouTube is firmly focused on video, not music. Also, YouTube basically already provides an on-demand music service that’s on par with Spotify. You can already create and share playlists of music videos, and you can use all that music via third-party apps that integrate with YouTube (much like Spotify’s app platform).

What could happen, however, is YouTube giving artists or labels the ability to offer people ad-free YouTube subscriptions on a case-by-case basis to increase the amount of money they’re making from Google.

YouTube sent VentureBeat the same statement it sent to Fortune regarding subscriptions, which eludes to partner subscriptions being a possibility:

“While we don’t comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we’re looking at that.”

This also wouldn’t be the first time YouTube has talked about giving its partners — whether they be music artists, TV networks, etc. — the capability to offer subscriptions. The video site has already started reaching out to some of its channel partners about the new subscription model, as VentureBeat reported back in January.

Music image via DGDESIGN/Shutterstock

Trying to get your amazing video more views in other countries? YouTube can help with that, thanks to a new partnership to get your video captions professionally translated.

YouTube has already offered caption translations for more than 300 languages using its Google Translate service since September. But if you’ve got a killer video and need people to understand what the dialog actually is, Google Translate may not cut it.

So Google has partnered with translation services Gengo and Translated.net so their services are accessible from within YouTube. They offer the ability translate professionally in up to 36 languages. When you request that some captions need translation, YouTube will now display these vendors (and eventually more) with how much they cost and estimated delivery date.

After you click on one of the vendors, you will be directed to the vendor’s site where you can place your order. When the vendor is finished, the translations come back to YouTube for you to approve.

Ideally, you’ll get professionally translated captions in a quick fashion and be able to get your video more of a spotlight in other countries you want to make an impact in.

Translation image via Shutterstock

In order to ensure that America remains a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, he emphasized the importance of education, economic, immigration, and patent reform, and said he strongly supported teaching compute programming in schools.

He even endorsed video games thanks to a recent encounter with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“The concept of vocational education got a bad rap at some point because of the perception it was tracking folks into blue collar jobs, but all those categories have eroded,” Obama said.

Look at Mark Zuckerberg. I was sitting next to him at dinner a couple of years ago, and he said he taught himself programming primarily because he was interested in games. If we set programs in high schools that engage kids because they get it, they won’t be just sitting there slouching in back of rooms while someone is lecturing.

Given how pervasive computers and the internet is now, how integral it is in our economy, and how fascinated kids are with it, I want to make sure they actually know how to produce stuff and not simply consume stuff.

For people who already live in the U.S., education is a key factor in supporting economic growth, not to mention the startup scene. Despite high unemployment rates, technical talent is in high demand. America’s performance in math and science is mediocre at best, and women and minorities are significantly underrepresented in technical fields. Furthermore, higher education is prohibitively expensive for a large portion of the population who still need practical skill sets and income.

Another barrier to a growing tech scene is immigration law. Immigration is a hot-button issue in the technology industry as talent developers, designers, and entrepreneurs from around the world have trouble legally working in the United States. The president said that the lack of immigration reform over the past few years has more to do with the legislative, rather than the executive, branch.

“I am not the emperor of the United States. I am the president,” Obama said. “Congress has not changed the broken immigration system.”

Obama continued:

I want immigration reform in the next four or five months. Every day we wait, there are more stories that break our hearts. We will have an economy stifled by deporting folks and a bottle-necked legal system that forces people to work illegally. It prevents us from recruiting and keeping top-flight engineers and tech people who are ready to work here or invest here. But because our legal immigration system to broken, we don’t track them. We train them here and then send them back to their countries. The opportunity for reform has never been higher.

One of the participants was a pink-haired entrepreneur who asked the president about software patents and the threat of software patent trolls. Startups have a strong need to defend themselves from copyright or intellectual piracy, but they often can’t afford to engage in legal battles. Obama said that while progress has been made on this front, patent reform is only “half way” to where it needs to go:

We want make sure patents are long enough that intellectual property is protected, without being so long that innovation is reduced. Tech is changing so fast. We want to protect privacy civil liberties and ensure the internet stays open. I am an ardent believer that what is powerful about the Internet is its openness and capacity for people to get out there and introduce new ideas with low barriers to entry, but I also want to make sure people’s intellectual property protected. We have to refine the legal process to keep up with the tech.

Obama also addressed raising the minimum wage, clean energy, and even fielded a question about why the U.S. Treasury is still minting pennies. [Why, indeed? --Ed.]

Overall, the level of intelligence and curiosity in the questions (from a small audience selected by Google, presumably) was far higher than anything seen from the press pool at a White House briefing

These hangouts are part of a weekly series in which the president answers questions from Americans, and this one follows his State of the Union speech earlier this week. Obama is a particularly tech-savvy president, and his team makes good use of social media, including Reddit and Twitter.

In what would become a very expensive game of musical chairs, Google is interested in making a $50 million investment into music video service Vevo.

The investment would give Google a 10 percent stake in the company and boost Vevo’s estimated valuation to about $500 million, according to a Bloomberg report that cites anonymous sources familiar with the deal.

Vevo holds the rights to music videos for most major music artists and its library of content brings in a significant number of unique views to Google-owned YouTube. And while Vevo currently has a lucrative contract with Google to keep its content on YouTube, the music video service has hinted at making a deal with Facebook in the past.

The new investment from Google, according to Bloomberg’s sources, would prevent Vevo from jumping to another partner as well as extend its exclusive contract. (That contract is set to expire in April.)

If true, the news wouldn’t be a complete surprise. Last year, Google made several attempts to bring in content to YouTube, including its $200 million investment  premium channel partners and a $35 million round of funding for video game media company Machinima.

Leading VOIP and cheap call provider Rebtel asked 1,632 American adults what effects social networks had on them. In a classic can’t-live-with-it, can’t-live-without-it scenario, almost 20 percent of American adults said Facebook was the social network that has the “most negative effect” on their mood, and another 20 percent said it caused them the most stress.

However, Facebook is also the site that almost half of Americans said was the most positive.

In other words, Facebook is such a big part of our lives that our experience of the site pretty much mirrors our experience of life: sometimes our friends piss us off, sometimes they make us sad, but more often, they make us happy.

One thing that’s almost guaranteed to drive your friends nuts? Including them in status updates and location check-ins. 45 percent of us don’t like it when we appear in social media updates that others create, and 70 percent say that’s because they don’t like to broadcast their location.

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Youtube caused almost no stress, as did MySpace. In MySpace’s case, of course, that’s because no-one actually uses the site anymore. But the social media site that are the most positive are Instagram and Pinterest, with only .3 percent and .1 percent, respectively, saying they were stressed out by those services.

One other interesting data point the Rebtel survey highlighted is how social media makes us feel.

On days when we check into social accounts more frequently than normal, we’re typically bored. Of course … that might be the  reason we’re checking in in the first place. But on days when we’re checking in less frequently than normal, we’re typically feeling left out, like we’re missing out on something.

In other words, we’re addicted.

photo credit: Amir Kuckovic via photopin cc

A Soundrop room on Facebook is a page running the app, which streams music and video from YouTube or Vevo at the top, provides for comments and chatting under the video, and features a social playlist with songs that people can upvote, promoting them to earlier spots.

Source: John Koetsier

A Soundrop listening room on Facebook

It sometimes seems as if a million startups focused on music and social, but I like this one. Soundrop streamed more than 500 million tracks last year as an app on Spotify, so it’s not exactly unknown and untested, and the app seems simple, fun, and useful. Soundrop rooms on Facebook are the exact same as on Spotify: Comments, votes, and songs playing are synced on both platforms.

Soundrop is focused on the needs of artists, saying “We help artists and labels accelerate their traffic and engagement” on its partners page. That’s smart, because as MySpace discovered an Internet age ago, fans follow where bands lead.

CEO Inge Andre Sandvik referenced that in a statement, while also acknowledging Facebook’s status as the world’s leading social network. “We’re excited to make Soundrop available in the main place where artists connect with their fans,” he said.

The company is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, but has offices in New York, L.A., and London. You can try the app at multiple musicians’ Facebook pages, including Matisyahu, Delphic, or Owl City. Or, continuing the Scandinavian theme, even ABBA.

photo credit: crsan – christianholmer.com via photopin cc

Want a taste of the Sundance Film Festival without the cold, crowds, and travel? Sundance is offering a selection of 12 short films on YouTube via its Screen Room channel.

While it’s nice for film fans who won’t be able to make it to the festival, it’s also something that Sundance has been doing for the past two years. Back in 2010, Sundance and YouTube also experimented with offering full films from the festival for rent — with disappointing results.

I’m all for filmmakers exploring new avenues of digital distribution, but it’s a shame that Sundance is simply repeating what it’s done for the past few years. By offering their shorts online, directors are also giving up any hope for Oscar consideration as well. As the LA Times notes, any short that appears online, on TV, or on video before winning a festival prize, or opening in a paid screening at an L.A. theater, gets excluded from the Oscars.

For short film directors, the benefits of opening their work up to a larger online audience likely outweighs awards consideration. There’s also a better chance you’ll actually be able to view these shorts on your TV this year, with YouTube-capable TVs and devices more readily available.

Below, check out descriptions from a few of the shorts being featured (via Slashfilm):

THE APOCALYPSE (dir. Andrew Zuchero): Four uninspired friends try to come up with a terrific idea for how to spend their Saturday afternoon.

ROKEN NIGHT (dir. Guillermo Arriaga): A young woman and her four-year-old daughter drive across desolated hills. Everything looks fine and they seem to enjoy the ride, until an accident sends them into the nightmare of darkness.

CATNIP: EGRESS TO OBLIVION? (dir. Jason Willis): Catnip is all the rage with today’s modern feline, but do we really understand it? This film frankly discusses the facts about this controversial substance.

THE EVENT (dir. Julia Pott): Love and a severed foot at the end of the world.

WHEN THE ZOMBIES COME (dir. Jon Hurst): At a remote hardware store, fans of the walking dead have turned their love of zombies into an obsession, warping the way they see the store and its customers.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

More than 110 high-speed LTE networks have now been deployed around the world with the potential to connect almost 500 million people in 50 different countries. But how is the new cellular technology affecting what mobile phone users do?

Mobidia, the carrier software company, just released a study of LTE early adopters, particularly in market-leading countries such as Japan, South Korea, and the U.S.

As of late last year, Verizon had the highest number of LTE customers on the planet, at 14.9 million, trailed by Japan’s NTT DoCoMo with 6.2 million and Korea’s SK Telecom with 5.7 million. AT&T has only 5.1 million LTE subscribers.

Source: Mobidia

Average data use

In all three countries, LTE subscribers use significantly more data than 3G subscribers. And in Korea, where 3G subscribers use under a gigabyte per month, LTE subscribers gobble up more than double: almost 2.2 GBs of data each and every month.

That increase in data on cellular networks seems to go hand-in-hand with a proportional decrease in data accessed via Wi-Fi. South Korean LTE subscribers actually used less Wi-Fi than 3G subscribers, while in Japan the share of Wi-Fi to cellular traffic for LTE users fell from 60 percent to 51 percent, and in the U.S., share dropped more gradually from 62 percent to 59 percent.

Interestingly, when Mobidia combined data consumed via both Wi-Fi and LTE, a “saturation point” of total data consumption emerges: 4.5GB per month in Japan and South Korea, and 3.2GB per month in the U.S. Apparently, you can use only so much data on a handheld device.

The shift in data transfer technologies is an occasion for mobile carriers to shift from all-you-can-eat plans to volume-limited plans, the study revealed. For instance, at SK Telecom in Korea, unlimited data volume plans drop from 24 percent of 3G users to only 7 percent of LTE users. Verizon has a smaller drop, from 19 percent to 16 percent.

The reason? Carriers are bundling large but not unlimited data volumes in LTE plans, and consumers are choosing those plans over unlimited options. Which might be as beneficial for mobile users’ pocketbooks as it is for carrier’s network availability.

Still, carriers should be aware: LTE means more data. Especially video data:

Source: Mobidia

YouTube data used on 3G vs LTE smartphones.

YouTube is rolling out a new feature that will enables viewers to transform their mobile devices into a YouTube remote, the video site announced today.

With the new “send to TV” feature, you can find a video on your mobile device and push it to a larger screen. (If you’ve ever used the device-pairing functionality between an Android device and Google TV, you’re familiar with how it works.) YouTube’s new feature is based on the idea that people can navigate through content much more efficiently via a smartphone or tablet.

YouTube plans to show off the new “sent to TV” feature at this year’s CES event, along with the latest TV-optimized version of YouTube (shown above). Initially, the feature will work with a variety of televisions and set-top boxes, including those from Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic, and Sony — with support for devices from Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio, Western Digital, and others later in the year.

Check out the demo video embedded below, and let us know what you think in the comment section.

We’ve seen the clash of titans in mobile as Apple, Google, and Microsoft have released new phones, tablets, and mobile operating systems. We’ve seen a single network connect over a billion people worldwide. We’ve seen the once-great mobile company of the far European north forced to hawk its headquarters to raise cash. And we’ve seen social media move from cutting-edge to mainstream as the Obama campaign celebrated four more years.

In every year, we see winners and losers: companies, devices, or operating systems. Here’s our look at some of the biggest successes and failures of 2012.

The winners

	Android What more can you say about Android? With 75 percent market share in the third quarter of 2012, the free mobile operating system from Google looks poised to take over the world.
	Samsung  Not many companies sell 55 million smartphones in a quarter. Samsung did, and it will probably do it again.
	Galaxy S III Samsung is hot in large part due to its top smartphone, the Galaxy S III. With over 18 million units shipped in the third quarter, and 30 million shipped in five months, it’s easy to see why.
	iPhone 5 Sure, it was Time’s gadget of the year. But more importantly, iPhone 5 catapulted Apple back into the smartphone leadership position, at least in the U.S.
	iPad Mini We called it immediately: light, portable, awesome, and expensive. And it even looked better up close and person in our review. But we had no clue it would become one of Apple’s best-selling iPads. And now that it’s probably going Retina in April/May, it’s just getting better.
	YouTube YouTube continues to be the online leader, by far, in online video with 800 million visitors and billion-view channels created by individuals and brands. Despite getting the boot from iOS6, YouTube just continues to grow, with 25 times the video streams of its nearest competitor.
	Twitter 2012 is the year that Twitter went mainstream, reaching 500 million users mid-summer and just recently announcing 200 million monthly active users. And despite major new API restrictions that soured its relationship with developers, a very public spat with Instagram, and an evolving shift from social utility to media company, the company continues to grow and solidify its space in fast-breaking news.
	Instagram With a sale initially priced at almost $1.3 billion and an exploding user count, not even a tone-deaf terms-of-service change that spurred a class action lawsuit and a possible exodus of some users can keep Instagram off our winner list.
	Google Android is hot — 75 percent market-share hot. Search is still a massive strength for the iconic company that runs an ad 30 billion times each and every day. And so Google makes over $100 million a day – and hits our list of hot companies in 2012.
	ARM With the vast majority of the chips in smartphones running ARM processors, ARM has people wondering whether the mobile juggernaut will challenge Intel for CPU dominance. That’s still a stretch, but not nearly what it was just a few years ago.
	Reddit With 3.8 billion page views and 46 million unique visitors in October — double the previous year’s numbers — Reddit is continuing its torrid growth. And it doesn’t hurt when the POTUS himself chooses your site to do an informal meet-the-people session — which required 60 dedicated servers.

Next page: The losers

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