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My Long-Winding YouTube Rant

I realize that the last thing most of the YouTube community wants to do is read (especially with this hard to read font). Even so, there are so many things that have been going on in relation to YouTube that I felt that this was the best way to express my thoughts about each and every one of them without having to A) Make a long, boring video, or B) Make a bunch of long, boring videos. And hey, I get to link to some images and videos in the process. Any comments or feedback to this should be made [on this YouTube video]. With that in mind, I move on to the ranting.

The Good News

I might as well get the good news out of the way, since there isn't much of it. YouTube has finally decided to give the gaming community it's category back. There is now a 'Gaming' category in which users can choose to place their videos. Unfortunately for us, the category does not seem to be fully integrated with the site yet. Even more so unfortunate, for one good addition to the site, there comes several bad ones...

YouTube Bugs and Glitches (and other annoyances)

There is a random bug going on with user subscriptions. Some new videos from people that I am subscribed to do not show up on the personalized homepage. These are videos that I have not yet watched, and have only been uploaded within a few hours. In order to see if there is a new video from someone I am subscribed to, I have to go into my list of subscriptions, and actually click on the username of that person to see if there is anything new from them. I may only be subscribed to about 30 channels at the moment, but I shouldn't have to take the time to click on each of those names to see if there is one new video. I reported this glitch to YouTube, and while I no longer have the reply Email, the person who replied basically said that I didn't know how their feature works. The problem is, I know exactly how it's supposed to work, and it's not working properly. More people are finding out about this bug, and hopefully more people will report it and eventually get YouTube to realize there is a problem somewhere down the line.

The other small, yet still annoying glitch, is the Inbox counter. This was fixed a while back, but it seems to be broken yet again. My 'Received Videos' counter says there are 8 videos in it, but there are none. Why does this keep breaking?

As for annoyances... Why does it take so long for YouTube to officially document and announce new features? How come they seem to remove certain features quietly without notice? Why do certain new features conflict with features of my web browser (I'm looking at you, search suggestion feature...)?

YouTube's Partnership Program

Let me make this clear... I have no problem with the [Partnership] program, or even the people who are in it. What I do have a problem with are the reasons why certain people were accepted easily, and why others get denied multiple times. Many of the 'Myths' of becoming a Partner are false. You do not need several hundred subscribers (there are many Partner channels with significantly low subscriber counts), you do not need to be featured, and you do not need a large number of videos. The selection process feels more like a game of Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey, where no one seems to get the tail in the right place, but the person who places the tail on the Donkey's eye gets more points than the one who places the tail on the Donkey's back leg. The program itself is really nothing more than an advertising gimmick, offering users some extra channel benefits, and even a small percentage of the ad revenue. So why is YouTube being so stingy about it? Wouldn't you think that the more videos with advertising, the better? Is it because there are so many videos on YouTube, that too many ads would actually hurt the site revenue? YouTube is currently accepting people with months of inactivitiy, underage children, previously suspended and/or banned users, and even pets to have Partner channels. I have no problems with the owners of those channels, or their videos, but I question YouTube's approval process when I see these people get accepted over people who many feel are more qualified. YouTube keeps widening the 'theoretical gap' between Partners and Non-Partners no matter what they do. If YouTube can't close the gap, then someone else will have to do it...

WARNING: THE SONICRETRO.ORG LAWYERS HAVE INFORMED ME THAT THE FOLLOWING IMAGE REQUIRES A WARNING! IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SLIGHTLY INDECENT CONTENT, PLEASE DO NOT LOOK AT IT. THANK YOU... :O

All Grown-Up?

Hey, I warned you. I dedicate this part of my rant to Emily, a.k.a. エミリー, a.k.a. applemilk1988. The very same person who a year ago, would talk about how she didn't do things like the above image shows us. She seems to have left her famliy-friendly YouTube self behind to become a Japanese Gravure Idol with an agency known as [A TOP]. This agency appears to choose it's talent based off of how many views it's applicants receive on internet websites. And I did I mention that Emily is supposed to have a swimsuit DVD released in September? Now, I honestly don't have a problem with people who want to do that kind of thing, and Emily proved many people wrong when they said she couldn't do it, but in this case, all I can think when I see these photos is, "Put your clothes back on!". I made a joke about a little over a year ago, where I had a puppet say he was unsubscribing to her and removing her from his friends lists because she made a video saying she had a boyfriend... but now I have to say that I have in fact unsubscribed from her YouTube channel after a year. My reason for this is the fact that by doing what she is doing now, she is showing us what kind of audience she wants, and I have to say that I'm not part of that audience. If I was, I'd be subscribed to hotforwords or something. Heck, a year ago, I recommended Emily's channel to friends, and even had them subscribe to her before even subscribing to my videos... all of them have long since unsubscribed... some of those are probably because of the account hacking that was done last August, but I can't speak for any of them. I'm not even trying to hate on her, or any of her fans, but I feel I needed to say this.

And Finally... Viacom

And now, the moment that most of you have been waiting for (I think)... my thoughts on the recent court order in which Viacom has requested personal information about YouTube users in order to determine how many people have watched their copyrighted content on the site (and thus resulting in mass copyright infringement). The personal information in question are user account id #'s, and IP addresses. Why is this information needed by Viacom to determine how many people have viewed their content on YouTube? Most websites gather IP address information anyway, so those people who think YouTube is at fault for collecting it need to understand that much before complaining. I don't see why Viacom needs access to this information unless they seriously think they can accomplish a mass suit against anyone and everyone who has viewed their content on YouTube, which I think is completely ridiculous. Viacom claims they need the information so they can compare the viewing numbers of their copyrighted content against all other content on YouTube. I'm guessing that most of the views on YouTube videos are on shared computers by people who are not even logged into the site. If that was true, wouldn't the view count statistics be enough? Why would user ID#'s and IP addresses even be a factor? YouTube has made a [blog entry] about this situation, but otherwise there has not been any official news release stating Google's position on what information they are willing to release.

More rants to come...

The thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are my own views and do not represent the views of SonicRetro.org or any other party (including those persons in the embedded videos) unless otherwise noted.