Marketing Pilgrim

Last year I consulted with a local TV affiliate that wanted to build a localized social network. Part of the plan was to equip citizen journalists so that they could record and upload videos of news stories relevant to their town or county.

We would have killed for the new YouTube Direct tool just launched by Google.

Built from our APIs, this open source application lets media organizations enable customized versions of YouTube’s upload platform on their own websites. Users can upload videos directly into this application, which also enables the hosting organization to easily review video submissions and select the best ones to broadcast on-air and on their websites. As always, these videos also live on YouTube, so users can reach their own audience while also getting broader exposure and editorial validation for the videos they create.

After getting an extension earlier this month, Google has finally proposed another settlement in the case over its book deal. The new settlement, filed on Friday, might still allow Google to provide access to in-copyright, out-of-print books. The new settlement may also help them to sidestep problems with copyright laws in some European countries.

The deal will also remove a clause that some believed meant that no other retailer would be able to get as good a deal as Google for those works.

The proposed settlement also takes care of so-called “orphan” works—works where the copyright holder is unknown or unlocateable. The settlement provides for appointing a trustee to sell the rights to other companies and to guard the proceeds for unknown holders for up to 10 years. For those holders who still haven’t been located, the funds will be donated to charity.

It seems like every month another news organization toys with the idea of charging for their content. But, we always rejoin, you’ll ultimately sacrifice your audience if you charge for news content. However, the Boston Consulting Group says that may not always be the case—in fact, even Americans are willing to pay for online news.

Well, sort of. The average amount an American was willing to pay for news was $3—and not $3 a day, but $3 a month. Not exactly the profits Rupert Murdoch dreams of, is it?

The survey also found that people were more willing to pay for news that was:

• Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents)

As you may, or may not, know, I’m somewhat of a photography addict. I don’t claim to be a professional–just addicted!

Anyway, I had my trusty Nikon D80 at PubCon and snapped over 100 photos. You can see all of my PubCon Las Vegas photos here.

In the meantime, here’s a selection of my favorites:

Matt Cutts knows Bing is getting closer behind Google.

Look what I found on my way to the MGM Grand Tweetup!

Brett Tabke hosts another excellent PubCon

The Trackur party was a big hit!

Just about every session room was packed!

I hesitate to share my PubCon presentation with you. You see, it includes all of the sneaky things I do to keep track of my competitors.

Well, actually, the presentation isn’t going to give too much away, because I tend not to go text-heavy with my slide decks–preferring to let my vocal chords do the heavy-lifting.

Fortunately, two awesome bloggers were on hand to capture the advice I spilled at about a 1000-words per minute.

For those of you who couldn’t get to PubCon, here are my slides:

Next up is Andy Beal.

I know that Google likes to cover its butt by placing new tools in Google Labs, then keeping the beta tag for years, but its new Social Search feature has gone AWOL.

OK, technically, Google has shut it down until sometime later today or tomorrow:

The Google Social Search experiment is temporarily down. We are working on it and expect to restore access sometime Monday or Tuesday

Down? Did they say down?

When has Google ever yanked a service after launching it? I know some services have failed–and therefore permanently shutdown–but temporarily yanked?

We have no word on why the service is down, but let’s have some fun speculating:

1. It was launched too soon, without proper care and attention to the details.