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Want your daily fix of odd, funny, geeky videos (many of which contain cuddly animals), but find that finding them on Reddit is a chore? Reddit.TV steps in to the rescue.

It’s a simpler way to quickly browse through the videos on the popular social media service, containing little more than the embedded video itself. Choose a Reddit category, click on the “Next video” button when you want another video and you’re ready for a high-speed video browsing experience.

That’s pretty much it as far as options go, except for a familiar little blue bird in the upper right corner that lets you quickly tweet the video.

Check out an introductory video for the service below.

Tags: Reddit.TV, video

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YouTube has been offering an increasing number of options to publishers for measuring engagement around their videos. Now, the YouTube Insight platform is letting you take that data anywhere you want, by making it exportable.

In a blog post, the company notes that they’ve “added a link that allows you to export your Insight data into CSV files. CSV files are open format files that organize data so it can be moved and analyzed using common spreadsheet software such as Google Docs and Microsoft Excel.”

That means all of your view counts, comment counts, demographic data, and other stats that YouTube tracks can all be exported to any platform that supports .CSV imports.

While that might not sound like a big deal if you’re already satisfied with the fairly detailed web-based analytics that YouTube now gives you, if you’re an Excel guru, it means there is a lot more you can do with your data on the desktop.

Ultimately, a savvy publisher will analyze the heck of this data to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and use it to help determine what type of content they publish going forward.

Additional YouTube Resources from Mashable

- 20+ Greasemonkey Scripts for Improving Your YouTube Experience

- 20+ Firefox Plugins to Enhance Your YouTube Experience

- Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources

Reviews: YouTube

Tags: video, youtube, youtube insight

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We’ve already covered the Flickr gallery with photos from Obama’s first three months in the White House. Now it’s time for YouTube, as the President will today address the nation regarding his first 100 days in office, and it will be streamed live on the popular video sharing site.

Furthermore, YouTube today features several related video clips on its homepage, including Karl Rove and Al Jazeera’s analysis of Obama’s first 100 days of presidency.

If you want to contribute, you can create a video with your assessment of Obama Administration’s work so far and advice to help them do a better job. YouTube will feature some of these videos on their News page tomorrow.

Tune in here, today at 8pm EDT, to watch the conference live.

Reviews: YouTube

Tags: 100 days, barack obama, press conference, White House, youtube

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Apture is an interesting service that enables site owners to add their own content-rich link icons to articles and blog posts - these little icons next to links allow users to hover over them to view a map, or a YouTube video, or a Wikipedia article related to the link.

For instance, a link to a Flickr photo might have a camera icon next to it - hover over it to see the entire photo pop up in a widget without leaving the page. Likewise, a link to the music site Imeem adds a speaker icon and lets you play the music file in a pop up widget.

Today Apture is announcing an important relationship with Reuters.com to place these multimedia widgets in its text.

Apture, which launched last June, has been cementing relationships with some major content publishers. Publishers already signed up include BBC News, The New York Times, SFGate, The Washington Post, and now Reuters. All of whom are no doubt attracted to the idea of keeping readers on their sites as long as possible.

Given that Apture adds real value and engagement to readers, it’s no wonder that they’re attracting the who’s who of content publishers anxious to compete in the online realm. We’re also not surprised that Apture’s managed to raise $4.1 million in funding in a downtrodden economy.

More Mashable Resources for Bloggers

- Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers

- Top Five Firefox Add-Ons for Mom Bloggers

- 10 of the Best Mac Apps for Bloggers

- 40+ Topics for Corporate Bloggers

Reviews: Flickr, Wikipedia, YouTube, imeem

Tags: apture, bloggers, multimedia, publisher, Reuters

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Twitter has been the subject of plenty of parody videos, including Flutter, the microblogging mockumentary.

Today the New York-based video production company CollegeHumor once again took a friendly shot at the messaging site, releasing “Real Life Twitter” (below), which takes Twittering to the streets.

Also worth a look: “Jake and Amir: Twitter“, last year’s short CollegeHumor skit.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: collegehumor, twitter

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Watching TV with friends is a time-old tradition. But what if you don’t have any friends around and still want to have that TV-on-the-couch experience? A few months ago, Splashcast and Hulu hooked up to bring Hulu to social networks via applications on your Facebook or MySpace page. Tomorrow, Splashcast will officially announce new, more engaging features for these apps: they’re calling it Social TV.

In actual fact, Social TV has been quietly tested over the past two weeks; the central differentiating feature being something called “Chatter”. Chatter allows users and friends to talk about a show via microcomments (comments don’t update your Facebook status).

The cool thing is that this is not done in real-time, but instead any time you chatter, it is synced to the video. So if you watch The Simpsons and put in a comment 6 minutes into the show, future users will see that comment, even if they watch the episode the next day. It’s like a running commentary left by social network users. Splashcast claims that during the two week test-run, time spent in the apps increased 50%, showing that comments make videos much more engaging. Other social features include polls and ratings.

We don’t think TV will be replaced completely by these “watch with friends” applications: sometimes you just want to kick back, relax, and passively consume a TV show. But it’s also clear that the web is enabling new forms of interaction around TV, and that can only be a good thing.

If you want to try the widgets, you can grab them on the Splashcast website.

Reviews: Facebook, Hulu, MySpace

Tags: facebook, hulu, myspace, social tv, splashcast

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If you watch American Idol and follow much of the chatter online, you probably know that contestants Adam Lambert and Danny Gokey seem to be the favorites to win the singing competition.

However, iTunes projects a possibly different outcome, if some download numbers that weren’t supposed to be shown can be used as a predictor of who gets voted off the show.

According to The New York Post“a glitch in the Apple software allowed fans a glimpse at which contestants are selling the most “Idol” download.” And, in what will come as a surprise to many Idol fans, Gokey was not the first or second most popular artist.

While Lambert, as expected, is the most downloaded artist so far with 6 of the top 10 top tracks, Kris Allen actually occupies 3 of the slots, while Gokey has just 1 song on the list. Of course, American Idol fans don’t vote on singing skills alone, and Gokey, as you might know, has a compelling backstory, which could make all of this irrelevant.

However, the Allen case gets a bit more compelling when you also look at recent Twitter trends. Allen’s Twitter buzz has now surpassed that of Gokey in back-to-back weeks, while Lambert maintains a healthy lead over both of them.

Also worth noting – on Intrade, which lets people make real money bets on the outcome of Idol, Gokey is still favored over Allen, by almost a 2 to 1 margin (while Lambert is the far and away favorite).

Could the iTunes leak coupled with some social media savvy actually be creating an opportunity for those wagering (or at least those participating in a prediction contest with friends) to take advantage of what might be a discrepancy in the odds? We’ll find out over the next few weeks as the show winds down.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: adam lambert, american idol, apple, danny gokey, itunes

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Regardless of our personal feelings, it’s clear there are a growing number of social ad networks, like Magpie and adCause, that capitalize on status updates. We now know that advertisers will pay and some users will gladly accept cash to Tweet about their products.

We don’t think these ads are wise without disclosure that they’re ads, since your followers might see them as a personal endorsement, breaking down the trust relationship. (Some followers might also find them annoying and stop following, but that’s another issue.)

Status Plug, an ad network just for Facebook pages, is one of the newest entrants in the space and hopes to appeal to page admins looking to cash in on their social capital, and advertisers who want to reach page fans and their friends.

Both advertisers and page admins — you must have 10,000 fans or more — can sign up with Status Plug. Interested admins share a bit about their page, audience, and minimum ad buy rates. They’re then listed in a page directory, where advertisers can browse, opt to bid on prospective buys, and create their ad.

Advertisers control the content of the ads which can include text, video, audio, and images. They can also specify the publish date and any additional special instructions. Should the page admin accept the offer, their page will post a rich-media update with said content. Status Plug will pay 70% of the agreed upon amount via PayPal (they keep the rest) within 5 days of the ad being published. You can see demo ads on the Status Plug page.

In true Facebook fashion, Status Plug ads are published as status updates and Facebook users can engage with them — share, comment, like — just like normal status updates. Since advertisers control the content, the boundaries between actual update and sponsored update could easily be blurred. In fact, we see no requirement to disclose that the update is an ad, which puts this on shaky ethical ground: would you trust a page admin who puts ads in his feed without disclosure?

Status Plug is currently not available to regular Facebook users; you must have a public page with more than 10,000 fans. Those same admins, however, can completely sell out and turn over page administration to the right buyer for the right price.

Right now the directory of hopeful page admins consists of region-specific pages. Denver, Tucson, Oregon, St. Louis, and even my hometown, San Diego, have put their updates for sale. Since most of these are pages for users by users with a shared interest, one could take the stance that the admins shouldn’t sell ads to communities that have previously existed ad-content free (outside of Facebook’s more obvious ads). But there’s always two sides to a story, so we’ll let you weigh in on this hot topic.

Should Facebook Page Admins sell their status updates?(answers)

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: ad network, ads, facebook, facebook pages, status updates

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In the realm of social news, few companies have been able to find the magic formula for financial profitability: that includes market leader Digg. Most readers and users on Digg, Reddit, and other social media websites are simply not interested in advertising. That’s why Mixx’s newest venture, Sifter is intriguing.

What’s Mixx Sifter, you ask? First, for those unfamiliar with Mixx, it is a social news website where users can vote news items up or down in order to promote or discuss content. This is just like its main competitor, Digg. Mixx has a good-sized community (several million visitors), which it is leveraging in its Sifter program. Sifter acts like an online focus group by funneling Mixx’s communal input on new products and services. This type of information could be something companies are willing to pay for.

How Does Mixx Sifter Work?

Mixx Sifter is a new section of Mixx, only accessible to active, contributing members - not a bad way to pick out credible users. Mixxers are given five different photographs, ads, and products to rate from 1-5, the best being a 1 and the least favorite being a 5. There is also a section for offering your comments and opinions.

For companies, this is a way to test their new ad campaign or get reaction to different product designs. Questions like what color scheme to use and what text to use could be answered with the power of Mixx’s sizeable userbase.

For users, they not only get karma points (a type of reward on Mixx), but they also can win prizes like iTunes gift cards and a Macbook. It could also be an interesting way to discover new products and information well before others have the chance.

Mixx Sifter: Monetizing a Social Community?

Mixx clearly has revenue on the mind with Mixx Sifter. Even its blog post announcing Sifter mentions investors multiple times. We can see why companies would pay for the services of Sifter - it’s a fast and effective way to get thousands of user responses and feedback for a fraction of the price and the effort.

But how much will companies pay for this service? There are problems - Mixx, like almost any other community, has its own flavor, quirks, and community demographic. You’re not going to test designs for jewelry or walking canes on Mixx. But if you’re a company looking for some early feedback and insight quickly, Mixx Sifter may be the right choice.

The other question is whether enough users will buy into Sifter. We think they will - it presents a unique way to discover new content and provides decent rewards - but with any community, the answer is always unclear at the beginning. But if Mixxers start using Sifter regularly, Mixx may be one of the few companies to have monetized social media.

Reviews: Digg, Mixx, reddit.com

Tags: digg, Mixx, monetization, social news

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As you no doubt have heard, Twitter’s traffic is growing at an incredible rate– the most recent numbers we’ve seen show that the microblogging service now attracts nearly 14 million visitors in the US alone (Nielsen Online, March ’08).

But how many of those visitors – many of whom are likely checking out Twitter after hearing about it on TV – are actually signing up for the service? eMarketer takes a stab at that question today, and estimates that there are currently about 6 million registered Twitter users, which equates to around 3.8 percent of people on the Internet.

The research firm further projects that those numbers will double by the end of this year to 12.1 million users, and gap up another 50 percent in 2010 to bring the service to a total audience of roughly 18 million registered users.

Now, while that’s impressive growth by almost anyone’s standards, it still makes the site sound fairly tiny compared to Facebook, who now has more than 200 million active users, or even MySpace who still has user counts in the high 8 if not 9 digits.

However, the passive Twitter audience – people who don’t actually tweet, hence accounting for the difference between traffic and users – will likely continue to grow, much in the way that blogs have over the past decade. People will visit the Twitter profiles of friends, family, or their favorite celebrities, and access that information in different ways, whether it’s through clients or portals that attempt to aggregate it.

With that in mind, it actually might be best to start thinking of Twitter as the new Blogger – the startup that put Evan Williams on the map in the first place – as opposed to the new Facebook.

Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogger

Tags: blogger, twitter

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