You know, YouTube videos are a right mix of insane to crazy to just unbelievable. It's hard to imagine how some of them ever get past the Google censors. Those that consist of content where the 'actors' are performing crazy, death-defying stunts are really quite gruesome to watch, and I believe that unknowing kids might well be disturbed by such videos.
The so-called 'funny' videos are a mix of laugh-your-head-off, what-a-load-of-cr*p and completely un-funny. Unfortunately, the latter two categories appear to have the lions share of the market.
If you run a funny videos site as I do, you need to do an awful lot of searching for funny and entertaining content, which means having to sit through what seems a mountain of complete and utter dross.
I think the problem these days lies in the fact that everyone on the planet owns a digital camcorder, or digital video phone, or one of the countless other 'must have' gadgets that do photos and video. And it's just a matter of point and shoot, then upload directly to YouTube. Easy peasy.
It would be nice if Google could find a way of putting the dross somewhere else, like in the bin, so that when we watch a video on YouTube we're not driven to taking our own lives because of the long, monotonous process of finding something worthwhile to watch.
What do you think??
Dave
Take a look at the video below for something really funny..
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Found how to add video content...
It took me a while to discover how to do this. I read the Google help pages for uploading videos to a blog and discovered that you had to click on the filmstrip icon in the editor.
But, I couldn't see the icon, and I was beginning to think that Google had withdrawn the service. So I left it for a couple of days then came back to it.
I decided to start from scratch and take a look a my basic settings. I was surprised to see that there were two editors for the blog - the new one and an old one. I had selected the new editor when I began writing the blog.
So, I edited my settings to use the old editor, just in case some of the settings had changed. Lo and behold, the filmstrip icon appeared in the old editor. Why Google has created a new editor without the ability to upload videos is beyond me. Maybe they don't like the idea of users competing with their utube service??
Makes you wonder, doesn't it...
Dave
Here's a very funny prank pulled on a doctor that is preparing to do an autopsy.
But, I couldn't see the icon, and I was beginning to think that Google had withdrawn the service. So I left it for a couple of days then came back to it.
I decided to start from scratch and take a look a my basic settings. I was surprised to see that there were two editors for the blog - the new one and an old one. I had selected the new editor when I began writing the blog.
So, I edited my settings to use the old editor, just in case some of the settings had changed. Lo and behold, the filmstrip icon appeared in the old editor. Why Google has created a new editor without the ability to upload videos is beyond me. Maybe they don't like the idea of users competing with their utube service??
Makes you wonder, doesn't it...
Dave
Here's a very funny prank pulled on a doctor that is preparing to do an autopsy.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Where are all the visitor counters??
Now that my blog is up and running, I am anticipating some visitors in the not to distant future. But, how do I find out how many visitors I am getting on a google blog?
On my normal 'domain' sites I use a combination of bbclone and pphlogger to track visitors. But these utilities cannot be used unless you have direct FTP access to the root of the site, which is not possible with a blogspot.com account.
The most common tracker is probably Google's own - Google Analytics. But I have tried to configure this for my blog with no success. One of the problems with Analytics is that you can only track 'root' pages for a site - i.e. the usual landing pages. This is not wholly acceptable for sites that receive most of their traffic from searches that take them to other 'non-trackable' pages such as http...com/notrack.html.
I have scoured the net for widgets that provide tracking counters without success. Why is that? Keeping track of casual visitors to your blog, as opposed to registered users, is something that I would imagine most bloggers would be interested in.
If anyone knows of such a tracking widget, then please let me know.
Dave
On my normal 'domain' sites I use a combination of bbclone and pphlogger to track visitors. But these utilities cannot be used unless you have direct FTP access to the root of the site, which is not possible with a blogspot.com account.
The most common tracker is probably Google's own - Google Analytics. But I have tried to configure this for my blog with no success. One of the problems with Analytics is that you can only track 'root' pages for a site - i.e. the usual landing pages. This is not wholly acceptable for sites that receive most of their traffic from searches that take them to other 'non-trackable' pages such as http...com/notrack.html.
I have scoured the net for widgets that provide tracking counters without success. Why is that? Keeping track of casual visitors to your blog, as opposed to registered users, is something that I would imagine most bloggers would be interested in.
If anyone knows of such a tracking widget, then please let me know.
Dave
Monday, 15 March 2010
..site up for four days and no sign of Google search engine
This is a major problem for anyone creating a blog then relying purely on search engines to get your site noticed. Google can be extremely slow at finding your blog, and even when it does discover it, it can take an extraordinary long time before it compiles it into its search results.
So, we sit and wait...we post once or twice a day..then we wait some more. It would be nice if Google could make it faster, but when you consider how the web search algorithms work you realise that the time taken to get indexed is probably quite short considering the number of pages purported to be on the net - billions!
We should remember that when we are searching for something with broad appeal. We get an instantaneous response listing hundreds of pages that may have what we are looking for. And, for the most part, those products will no doubt be a the top of the listing - in the first three pages of results. That is a mighty feat.
I remember the dark days of the net some years back - before Google existed - and I have to say that it was nigh impossible to find what you were looking for. I would type into the search engine something like 'the Beatles' and the results would first indicate 'do you mean beetles?' then go onto list pages and pages with no mention of what you were searching for.
About the best search engine on the block at that time was Alta Vista. This was something of a revelation because it gave you some results pages that actually contained the items you were searching for. That was novel - which shows how far we have come.
Thanks for reading. I'll now wait a few more days for Google to discover me...
Dave
So, we sit and wait...we post once or twice a day..then we wait some more. It would be nice if Google could make it faster, but when you consider how the web search algorithms work you realise that the time taken to get indexed is probably quite short considering the number of pages purported to be on the net - billions!
We should remember that when we are searching for something with broad appeal. We get an instantaneous response listing hundreds of pages that may have what we are looking for. And, for the most part, those products will no doubt be a the top of the listing - in the first three pages of results. That is a mighty feat.
I remember the dark days of the net some years back - before Google existed - and I have to say that it was nigh impossible to find what you were looking for. I would type into the search engine something like 'the Beatles' and the results would first indicate 'do you mean beetles?' then go onto list pages and pages with no mention of what you were searching for.
About the best search engine on the block at that time was Alta Vista. This was something of a revelation because it gave you some results pages that actually contained the items you were searching for. That was novel - which shows how far we have come.
Thanks for reading. I'll now wait a few more days for Google to discover me...
Dave
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Some things you need to know about Google Adsense
Google Adsense is a wonderful thing for bloggers. That's because it is totally free. You do not need to have an expensive domain, or an expensive web host, just a Google Blogger account, or seven..
Why do I say ..or seven? Well, that's because I have discovered that I can apparently have as many blogger accounts for which I have the time to maintain. And that adds up to a heap of Google ads. The only problem is getting those accounts to be discovered by other bloggers.
Now, that's no easy matter. In fact it's downright hard, as I can attest to - having owned three domains for three years. You need either
1. lots of friends that you can exchange with, or
2. get noticed by one of the major search engines such as Google or Bing or Yahoo.
I don't belong to any great blogging community since this is my first toe-in-the-water attempt. Plus, I'm not one for general chit-chat.
So, that leaves the search engines...
It's hard!! Getting your site near the top of the Google rankings is one of the most hit-and-miss affairs that I have ever encountered. The ideal way to get near the top is to have other sites, preferably large and important sites, include a link to your webpage from theirs. It's like having an invitation to the ball, and the more invitations you receive, the more important you become. You climb the rankings.
But, I hear you sigh, why would large sites want to provide a link to your puny site? Why, exactly? Well, to be blunt, they wouldn't. So, small sites and blogs have to resort to building a site with lots of keywords within the text of their pages which then link to keywords in the Title of the page.
For example, if my page has the Title: 'The Funniest Videos in the World' and the text on the pages mention the words 'funniest' and 'videos' and 'world', then Google will provide a ranking based on how well your site caters for an audience that is searching for those three words. When Google indexes your page for those keywords it will provide a ranking that fits your site into the scale it creates for all ranked sites that use those keywords.
If your site is indexed by Google, and it appears near the top of that index - say the top three pages - then your site has a real chance of being discovered by other people browsing the web using search terms that match, or partially match your keywords.
And Bingo! Complete strangers browse to your site, look at the content, and, maybe, in the process, click on some of your Google ads. And that's money in the bank.
The more sites you spend time creating, the more the potential you have of making 'free' cash. Whoopee!!
Dave
Why do I say ..or seven? Well, that's because I have discovered that I can apparently have as many blogger accounts for which I have the time to maintain. And that adds up to a heap of Google ads. The only problem is getting those accounts to be discovered by other bloggers.
Now, that's no easy matter. In fact it's downright hard, as I can attest to - having owned three domains for three years. You need either
1. lots of friends that you can exchange with, or
2. get noticed by one of the major search engines such as Google or Bing or Yahoo.
I don't belong to any great blogging community since this is my first toe-in-the-water attempt. Plus, I'm not one for general chit-chat.
So, that leaves the search engines...
It's hard!! Getting your site near the top of the Google rankings is one of the most hit-and-miss affairs that I have ever encountered. The ideal way to get near the top is to have other sites, preferably large and important sites, include a link to your webpage from theirs. It's like having an invitation to the ball, and the more invitations you receive, the more important you become. You climb the rankings.
But, I hear you sigh, why would large sites want to provide a link to your puny site? Why, exactly? Well, to be blunt, they wouldn't. So, small sites and blogs have to resort to building a site with lots of keywords within the text of their pages which then link to keywords in the Title of the page.
For example, if my page has the Title: 'The Funniest Videos in the World' and the text on the pages mention the words 'funniest' and 'videos' and 'world', then Google will provide a ranking based on how well your site caters for an audience that is searching for those three words. When Google indexes your page for those keywords it will provide a ranking that fits your site into the scale it creates for all ranked sites that use those keywords.
If your site is indexed by Google, and it appears near the top of that index - say the top three pages - then your site has a real chance of being discovered by other people browsing the web using search terms that match, or partially match your keywords.
And Bingo! Complete strangers browse to your site, look at the content, and, maybe, in the process, click on some of your Google ads. And that's money in the bank.
The more sites you spend time creating, the more the potential you have of making 'free' cash. Whoopee!!
Dave
Friday, 12 March 2010
So, how did I find Google's Blogspot?
Well, I'd been trying hard to promote my site in order to get it high in the Google rankings, but for the best of my keywords I was always below worldsfunniestvideo.blogspot.com. Nice plug, eh?
One day I decided to take a look at this site to try and find out why it consistently beat my site in the Google rankings whilst using the same keywords as my site. The site is nicely laid out with direct links to YouTube videos and other appealing stuff.
But, I couldn't for the life of me see how it could be better in some of the more unusual keywords that I tried. So, on a different tack, I decided to try a search for blogspot.com in the whois database. Lo and behold, the site domain was owned by Google! Stone me, in all that time I had no idea that blogspot.com belonged to Google, and that it offered a free blog hosting service.
So, thanks again worldsfunniestvideo.blogspot.com, you made me sit up and open my eyes to the fact that I was being beaten in the Google rankings by a Google-owned site! Duh..
Dave
One day I decided to take a look at this site to try and find out why it consistently beat my site in the Google rankings whilst using the same keywords as my site. The site is nicely laid out with direct links to YouTube videos and other appealing stuff.
But, I couldn't for the life of me see how it could be better in some of the more unusual keywords that I tried. So, on a different tack, I decided to try a search for blogspot.com in the whois database. Lo and behold, the site domain was owned by Google! Stone me, in all that time I had no idea that blogspot.com belonged to Google, and that it offered a free blog hosting service.
So, thanks again worldsfunniestvideo.blogspot.com, you made me sit up and open my eyes to the fact that I was being beaten in the Google rankings by a Google-owned site! Duh..
Dave
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