I recognise that humans don't like change as a general rule. It definitely holds true for me. The pathways in my gray matter are deeply etched, why would I want to un-etch them?

I have a particular way that I use VideoSift too- I bookmark most of the pages I frequent and go directly there.

In the next few weeks some significant changes will be brought in with 4.0. Although they may make VideoSift look pretty different from the community you love - I hope you'll give them a chance - and let new interesting grooves form in your brain. As I've always said VideoSift is about the people - and that's not changing.

We'll be taking feedback from testers and then everyone else after the general release. This community will continue to evolve and change with everyone's input and creative juices. I love that everyone who has ever worked on this site has bubbled up from the community - and that's no different for 4.0. It's going to be great.

In light of the current (yet eternal) flamewar- I wanted to confess the depth of my affiliation. Apple ][ 4ever.

Website traffic reading is fun and sometimes mysterious. Today alone, this post - received over 10K visits- but when I look at the sources of the traffic - it all looks like this:

mail.google.com
webmail.aol.com
facebook.com
us.mg2.mail.yahoo.com
us.mg4.mail.yahoo.com
us.mg201.mail.yahoo.com
webmail.att.net
co117w.col117.mail.live.com

Or, it shows in Google Analytics as "direct" traffic - which just means that it can't tell where it comes from.

My deduction is that it's from one of those mass forwarded email chains - and the "direct" would be from non-web mail clients like Outlook that don't supply a referrer.

For the month, this page alone has done 70k+ pageviews.



But it doesn't compare to this post which has done 94K pageviews for the month and has similar mail client source page stats.

Has anyone received one of these - what I can only assume are mass chain emails with VideoSift content? If so please let me know - I'd be curious to see what it's about.

I don't know about you - but I have never seen a Youtube overlay ad that I wanted to click on. The topics are often completely unrelated to the video - annnnd - I'm watching a video damn it - why I am going to click on this in the middle of my watching?

YouTube will be forced to start running 10-15 second post-roll video based "commercials". Mark my words - it's coming - and while it will be annoying for most of us, it will be much more effective from an advertising standpoint.

I don't own an iPhone and believe it or not I've never owned an iPod. However, my phone contract expires at the end of June and I'm looking forward to jumping in with both feet. Here's what I'm looking forward to the most:

Turn by turn GPS. Anyone who has driven with me knows that my sense of direction is poor. A couple of months ago I actually started driving on the wrong side of the road- honking at people assuming that they were on the wrong side. Silly American.

Decent video. I'm also poor at documenting those parental events. If it's not a birthday or Christmas- the chances of it being caught on video by me are slim. I'm hoping it will have good integration with Vimeo- as that's my video host of choice.

Decent photos. See above - I use Flickr.

Gmail / Google Docs / Analytics integration. I could ditch the laptop if I had good access to this.

VideoSift 4.0 integration - er, maybe. Though I know Flash video still hasn't happened. Anyone have any news on when it will? Seems weird as it's available on most other smartphones. I can only think that Apple is worried that it would cut into App store revenue.

An iPod. Seriously- never had one.

We've flirted around with the idea before- but I still like the idea of a 30 minute sift show that highlights the big posts of the week and other things going on around the Sift. With a roundtable panel of Sifters new and old.

First off, does anyone know of a good software solution for group video podcasts?

Secondly would you be interested in participating?

Here are the browser stats from Analytics for the month of May. Nice to see that Firefox has taken over from Internet Explorer - at least here on VideoSift.

And Ant, way to represent with Seamonkey, coming in at #10.

It's not a huge deal, to be honest - Australia accounts for a fairly small percentage of our visitors. Still brings me down a little more and makes me think that advertising and online communities are a rough fit. Here's the email I received:

Good Evening Brian,

Adconion Media Group has received a complaint from an Advertiser about content they were displayed against.

The offending video contravenes Adconion Terms and Conditions where it states that Adconion will not pay for impressions of a salacious nature.

In saying such we have decided that as of 24 hours you account will be cancelled and final payment will be tallied for impressions rendered up to the 24 hour period.

If you would like to view the offending video, I have enclosed a link.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Use-Of-N-Word-May-End-Porn-Stars-Career

Kind Regards,

[name redacted]

----------------------------
Media Account Executive - Australia
Adconion Media Group

The online advertising world leaves me shaking my head more often than not - so, maybe we're on a better track with the Amazon strategy. I've already found a couple books I'd like to order - and although it is not generating much revenue now - I like the idea of putting advertising in the hands of the community and quality recommendation for books, movies and music.

So, I'm looking at this very slick America.gov website- and I'm reminded so much of how the US federal government was just another IT consortium in Snow Crash. Also see this video post on the Tesla Roadster, from the same site.

I've seen some screens today that are absolutely fantastic. I would say that the change from 3.0 to 4.0 will be of a magnitude of the change from 1.0 to 2.0. It's going to be big. But don't fear the change, all of the good things will still be there ... just better.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a nice mix of nostalgia and re-imagining. Don't bother staying past the credits, there is no teaser for the next one - though I'd be surprised if they don't make another.

Simon Pegg was great as Scotty, and the Bones character was a very good Deforest Kelly impression.

As good as it was, if I were honest - I would admit that if I came into this movie knowing no Star Trek canon, it would seem very muddy and confusing. This is a movie for people who know Trek lore - and enjoy little moments of "aha, I see what you did there".

It seems that the Comedy Channel in Australia has put pressure on Comedy Central to block Australians from viewing The Daily Show episodes online. I use StrongVPN, and simply flip the switch, but I'm sure most people will just go back to BitTorrent. I liked watching the full episodes on the Web because the quality is reasonably high and I'm not uploading anything as I am through BitTorrent. (uploads are a concern for many in Australia as we often pay for bandwidth in both directions)

Reddit is a much bigger site than VideoSift - in the top 300 sites in the US, traffic-wise.

Yesterday we had our first #1 ranked Reddit post. That means we had a post that hung around at the top of the Reddit front page for a few hours. We get a lot of our posts sent to sites like Reddit or Digg, but they are often down voted, because they are not linked to the "source" - this being YouTube or other hosts. This reaction always surprises me because a site like Reddit seems to share lot of the anarchic, anti-corporate attitudes that we have here on the Sift.

I thought you might like to see some of the stats from the day. I love web stats . Some think it's like watching paint dry - but I feel like I'm plugged into something neat when I watch them. I should mention that VideoSift hit the number 1 position pretty late in the day, so this doesn't represent the result for any #1 position on Reddit necessarily.
... more inside ...

Beware: Here there be Spoilers

Before I lay into it, I want to say that this was probably the best TV SF since Star Trek TOS. The acting was solid and the visual effects were groundbreaking for a TV show.

I can understand why a lot of Sifters were disappointed by the ending. Loose ends weren't so much tied up, as crumpled up in a ball and tossed away. And yes, they used the God escape.

The problem with so much modern serial fiction is that writers have gotten very good at weaving a rich symbolic narrative - that lacks a core of of plot and believability. (see Lost) Here's my list of themes that were heavily invested in story-wise but kind of dropped at the end.

1. Starbuck. WTF? - did I miss something?
2. The Cylon/human kid - so they led Galactica on a suicide mision- why again?
3. The Baltar Caprica 6 "angels" - fucking angels.
4. The other skin jobs - where did they go? Did they get resurrection?
5. What does "All along the Watchtower" have to do with anything besides making a nice theme song for the final season?
6. Homo Sapiens on a random planet
7. Did I mention Starbuck, the pristine viper and her rotting corpse?

So with all these plot/theme holes that you could fly a heavy raider through, God was the only solution for any kind of resolution. Because the writers painted themselves into a corner with all of their deeply rich and mysterious narrative concepts, creating a very literal deus ex machina.

I have to admit that I didn't mind the god stuff as much as I did in Contact - where I really found it almost offensive, and disrespectful of Sagan's book and belief system. Sometimes, I have to admit, I even like a bit of God in SF. If you ever get a chance to read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel, that's God in Science Fiction done right.