I've been lucky enough to be working on the somewhat leading edge of computer technology for the past 20 years. Occasionally a new "killer app" comes along. A new software application that blows me away the first time I see it. I instantly want to use it and it maybe it changes my life or my work or both, specially if it's free. ;-) Some of the past "killer apps": Mosaic, Hotmail, Napster and Skype.
The latest killer app is www.youtube.com where anyone can publish video for everyone to see. I'm using it to host the videos for this blog. Since I published the Shanghai New Years video four weeks ago, almost 300 people have watched all or part of it. Most of them probably found it through surfing, not from this blog as we don't have that many readers. That's amazing to me although it doesn't compare to the hundreds of thousands of views that some videos get, like the famous Zidane head butt.
On youtube, one can make the video public or private. The Tibet, Bali, and Shanghai videos are public. Uncle Shen's funeral is private. You can understand why. It can only be watched if you know where to look. Unfortunately, it's so private that it can't be watched from this blog unless you are signed in as a youtube user. Sorry for any frustration that may caused. I have cut some stills from the video on put them in the original post, near the bottom.
If you want to watch the video, "sign in" to youtube in another window and click here. If you still have problems, email me.
1 comment:
I don't get YouTube. Maybe it's because I'm not currently interested in uploading videos. I was introduced to it (like most people) by someone pointing out this hilarious link to a SNL fake video mocking the "Lord of the Rings" (or it was something like that). I have had numerous other less-so-funny things pointed out to me there. To me it doesn't seem that different from Google Video, other than YouTube's indifference toward copyrights and I guess it's easier to stick a nice link to the video on your webpage than it is with Google Video? Google Video almost had a breakthrough when everyone was passing around those lip-syncing Chinese students a while back.
I agree on Mosaic being a "killer app." Hotmail and its sibling Yahoo! Mail didn't grab me so much, because around the same time many people were discovering them I was walking around with a wireless e-mail client on my Palm VIIx--that whole device was a killer app for me.
Napster I never got into, but I am currently way into BitTorrent and the azureus client.
Skype hasn't grabbed me yet. My current fave killer app is still Gmail, because it changed the way I used mail by blowing away the whole stupid folders paradigm that has been causing me quandaries ever since I started using elm on Unix. I still don't get why no one else seems brave enough to adopt the whole "no folders, labels" way of thinking, because it makes a lot more sense. Windows Live Mail only succeeds in looking more like the now-dated Outlook, while Yahoo! Mail beta looks like another me-too of Live Mail. --jaydro
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