Back in June I made a post about how the online video sharing site Vimeo is without a doubt the best user generated video sharing site on the Internet. I wrote a 1,000 word introduction and review of the site praising everything from the overall design, the ease of use, the amazing HD features, the personable and active staff and on and on. My only slights on Vimeo at the time were the then 500MB upload cap a week yet I even made excuses for that and their small user-base (when compared to other video sites).

Fast forward five months to last night when I found out that Vimeo’s upload policy’s could be hung on the wall right next to those of Communist China. The journey started when I purchased a Canon PowerShot TX1 HD Camera a while back and it has been collecting dust every since… and I have been wanting to get off my lazy butt and start shooting some video with it and editing in HD in my spare time. Well, I’ve also been playing a lot of Xbox 360 lately and recently I’ve been frequenting a great achievement website… so I thought I’d shoot a short video.

I’ve been playing Gears of War 2 during my free time since it launched last Friday and I’ve been having fun tracking down some of the achievements so I shot a video of how to unlock the Pound of Flesh achievement (seen above). I shot in in HD, slapped some Nine Inch Nails over it, edited it together and threw some captions on. All in all it took me about five and a half hours for to complete the project as there was a learning curve with the camera and the software (Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum)… and overall I think the project came out well for a first shot, it certainly wasn’t rushed.

I uploaded my video to Vimeo and headed for bed, feeling like I actually did something constructive with my time last night by helping to show my fellow gamers how to score some achievement points… and I did so in a technologically superior way than YouTube, so all the better. Anyway, I wake up this morning to check to see if my video had any views and much to my dismay it had been deleted. I logged on to my email to see the following message.

"Your video ‘[DM] Gears of War 2: Pound of Flesh Achievement 720p’ has been removed from Vimeo because it violates our policies.

Vimeo does not allow porn, commercial videos, gaming videos, videos that incite hatred, or videos that you did not make yourself ("I have permission from the creator" does not count as making it)."

Wait, what? You’re kidding right? Vimeo doesn’t allow gaming videos? Since when? Well, it seems a lot hast changed since my review in early June on Vimeo… and I’ll be honest I haven’t been to Vimeo much since then because I actually work for a living now. On July 21st 2008 Vimeo brilliantly announced that "the Vimeo staff has decided that we are no longer going to allow gaming videos on Vimeo." Their decision to ban video games while shocking is fine, it is their website and they can run it how they see fit, it is their excuses for banning them that are flat out ridiculous and wrong.

"Vimeo was created with the intent of inspiring creativity and providing a place to share video with friends and family. The Vimeo staff does not feel that videos which are direct captures of video game play truly constitute creative expression." 

Wait, Vimeo feels that they have the right to determine what is creative? Sure a lot of video game clips on the Internet are both stupid and a waste of time but last time I checked you let people determine that on their own, and you certainly don’t make a sweeping comment like you don’t feel any video game videos are creative. My video while simplistic still took about 30 minutes to film, I chose a song that I though would fit based upon the flow of the footage, I chose a font based upon the look and feel I wanted for the video add the two-plus hours to edit, then setup time along with the syncing with the music… how is any of that  not creative?

Their second reason was based upon cost and resources which again I understand but how they state it is way out of line… "This decision was not easy, and there was much debate internally; however, we feel this decision will benefit Vimeo in the long run and better benefit the video makers it was created for." So the only people welcome at Vimeo are the type to shoot a flower in HD for 45 seconds with no editing, no music, no real purpose? I see… it all makes perfect sense now. If you were going to say it was about cost then stick to those reasons, don’t try to turn it and make it look like it was the "gamer’s fault" for taking over your systems.

In the end I know all of this old news and from what I’ve seen by Vimeo’s web statistics they are still experiencing growth (Compete/Quantcast), but how much bigger could they be if they didn’t turn away hundreds of millions of gamers? I was ready to put in my credit card number for $60 bucks a year so I could upload HD videos to my heart’s desire until I received that email. It’s their site, their rules which is fine. But they opened up as a basic "tasteful alternative to YouTube" and they changed the rules after the fact… and even more so they did it in the most tasteless of ways by basically censoring people thinking that they weren’t creative enough to be a part of their precious little Web 2.0 website. Vimeo is dead to me now, I doubt they’ll miss me but they won’t shut me up either. BLAH!

Below is my response to their blog post after reading it. It’s trite but I think relevant none-the-less.
"Seriously, who is running this company? I love how the "Vimeo Staff" feels they can define what is truly "creative"… can you be anymore elitest? The bottom line is the average gamer doesn’t fit into your hybrid-driving, MacBook carrying, Vonnegut reading, shaggy-haired wearing, Starbucks drinking, Pottery Barn shopping yuppy 2.0 mold so you found a way to cut them all out.

Shame on you Vimeo, you’ve cast a black eye on the Internet video community as a whole… and you’ve come off as completely dishonest. I am sure that this decision is all about financing as game videos are some of the most browsed on the web so I’m sure it was hurting your pocket. I have praised this site countless times for it’s great design, simple interface, attention to detail and even the very involved staff… now I will tell everyone to steer clear because gamers aren’t welcome here because they aren’t "creative enough," and every single person I know including my parents are gamers."

I know that trading stocks isn’t for the faint of heart but I figure I throw plenty of my money away on new gadgets and nights out on the town so I might as well start doing something constructive with my spare cash. SogoTrade seems to be the perfect online broker for an amateur trying to make their way into the Wall Street game as they offer the cheapest trades on the Internet. When you sign-up they give you 100 free trades (as most online brokers do) but the trick is, their standard trades are just $3.00 each… that means as a day trader your total swing on a trade is just $6.00 in total commissions, which makes a huge difference when dealing in small trades. Better yet, if you become a premium member for just $10.00 a month your trades are just $1.50 each!

Now, I don’t encourage anyone out there to just jump into day trading head first, I hope they all take time to think about it, research it and then make a decision. I’ve read a lot of great information regarding day trading and plan on reading even more. I’m about 100 pages into The Complete Guide to Day Trading and still have the following books waiting for a read: A Beginner’s Guide to Day Trading Online, The Complete Guide to Investing in Short Term Trading: How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely, The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down and The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing. Bottom line: read, read and read some more. Day trading is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

Excitingly enough, I made my first trade yesterday afternoon, buying 100 shares of the CIT Group (CIT) at $4.43 a share… and just about 30 minutes later I unloaded the stocks for $4.83 a share, scoring $40.00 in profit. I had done it, I purchased 100 shares of an American company and turned a profit! Sure transactions like my first one won’t make me rich overnight but it isn’t a bad start either, especially considering the past 48 hours the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost over 800 points. I am going to continue to make "safe trades" like CIT over the next several weeks until I can refine my plan for trading. The goal I am making for myself during these first weeks is trying to prove to myself that even during the current turmoil on Wall Street that there is money being made.

My current plan is simple, I plan to buy and sell shares of low dollar stocks ($1-10 per share) multiple times a day to hopefully pull in $50-300 of profit a day… during these first weeks I am going to limit myself to a maximum of 100 shares per purchase. This is where SogoTrade’s low dollar trades come in so handy for beginners. For example: let’s say I buy 100 shares of GM (GM) at $4.50 a share, then an hour later I resell those 100 shares at $4.80 for a profit of $30, with SogoTrade’s premium account buying and selling those shares cost me a total of $3.00 leaving me with a profit of $27. Taking those same numbers and using Scottrade ($7 per trade) my profit would only be $16 while TD AmeriTrade ($9.99 per trade) would only be $10.02… you see where I am going with this?

In the end I’m hoping to continue to improve upon my plan while making damn sure that I stick with that plan. All information regarding day trading mentions making a plan, refining that plan and sticking to that plan… "your plan is your life-line" as they say. My current plan is watching 61 low dollar stocks from the S&P 500, purchasing a maximum of 100 shares at a time and selling all shares by the end of the trading day (3:00PM CST). Over the coming months I hope to leverage the profits I make in my trades as more buying power to diversify my daily portfolio allowing me to buy more and more stocks at 100 shares each, so I can turn those $40 profits per trading day into hundreds of dollars a day.

Why low dollar stocks? Well, there are a few reasons. First, the risk is much lower on low-dollar stocks… 100 shares of a $4.00 stock is a lot easier to swallow than 100 shares of a $20.00 stock. Secondly, low-dollar stocks generally have a lot of trading volume when compared to other high-dollar stocks. Sure there are exceptions to this rule but the vast majority of the stocks I’m watching have at least two million shares bought and sold in an average trading day with some going as high as one hundred million shares. That kind of volume pretty much guarantees that these stocks will fluctuated a minimum of 10-20% in a trading day, which is the kind of movement I look for in making those $40-$50 sales.

I know I have an uphill battle on my hands and I know I will have my good days and most importantly my bad ones, but the key is that I learn from those bad days so I make them few and far between. Today I’m going to keep my eyes on Ford (F) and GM as they both release their earnings reports this morning which should be dismal considering their asking for a 25 million dollar government bailout. I’ll also be keeping my eye on the National City Corporation (NCC) and Wachovia Corporation (WB) as both of them may see another 100 million volume trading day today. National City just happens to be my mortgage lender… funny how that works, as I’m sure they’ve seen better days; they’re down over $15.00 a share for the year, OUCH!

Over the coming days, weeks and months I hope to post frequent updates and reviews about my trading experiences… including reviews on all the books mentioned above. So stay tuned and wish me luck!

Every since YouTube first began to catch on in late 2005 the landscape of the internet has changed. Everywhere you look nearly every website across the globe has changed and integrated video to help improve their site and their message to their visitors… the once text based world of the internet is now returning back to a visual experience which will help drive even more people to the interwebs. The easier websites and the internet are to understand, the more casual users will give it a chance and stick around. So easy even a cave man can do it.

The overnight sensation and popularity of YouTube has spawned a flock of copy-cats and clones who are trying to get a piece of the video sharing pie… however it will take a small miracle for one of the many clones to grab a bite seeing as YouTube now has Google’s large elbows like a prisoner in the mess hall. Many of the other video sharing sites have improved upon YouTube’s model and actually offer a better service. Veoh, BrightCove, Revver, Blip.TV, MetaCafe, iFilm, DailyMotion and others have helped improve the video sharing experience and in my opinion are better sites than YouTube… however one site stands above them all, and that site is Vimeo.

Vimeo is an amazingly well designed Web 2.0 video sharing site and is really like no other on the internet. When you visit the home page of the site you can see some videos that the Vimeo team likes, you can explore via groups, channels or projects or you can view their High Definition videos. That’s right; Vimeo is the premiere HD video sharing service and allows users to upload videos in 720p resolution (1280×720). Since Vimeo is the best at user created HD video sharing they have a very technically competent and helpful user base. Reading the comments on HD videos you’ll notice a very interactive experience with intelligent dialogue back and forth, unlike most other video sharing sites.

Vimeo’s user experience is also easy to use and navigate. When you log into your account you are greeted with four tabs that help you around the site. Your inbox informs you of any new messages/comments as well as lets you know if any of your favorites has posted another video. Your My Stuff tab lets you keep tabs on your uploaded videos and albums. The Activity tab lets you browse what is going on across all of Vimeo or just what you and your favorites have done lately. Finally the Discover tab shows you other popular videos from around the site to help you expand your horizons. Vimeo also has an intuitive and simple voting process, you either can vote to like a video or not like a video… no more silly star system! 

The video view page and the flash player are slick as well. The flash player has the user controls superimposed over teh video and they show up and disappear as you mouse over and off the video. You can play and pause the video, use a timeline slider, share the video, grab the embed tags, enable or disable HD (to improve the loading time) and maximize the video to fit your entire screen. The page shows the video’s credits, associated tags, a list of people who liked it, a threaded comment system and the video’s statistics. Unlike most other video sites Vimeo’s main focus on each video’s page is the video itself… where most other sites have a small video with tons of clutter Vimeo shows you a large video with the clutter taking the back seat, which is how it should be.

Overall in terms of design, delivery and use Vimeo just blows the rest of the internet video sites out of the water; in my opinion there isn’t anyone even close to the amazing service Vimeo offers. Vimeo’s only real problem is that they limit their users to 500MB of upload storage a week. The cap of uploads is obvious for a few reasons. One, they limit their overhead costs of having to have an insane amount of storage available at any given time. With their membership and growth metrics they can easily estimate the amount of needed storage from week to week. It also helps them keep spammers and illegal videos off of their site. If people can’t upload entire seasons of copyrighted TV shows they’ll probably just move on to a site where they can (and they obviously do).

As of June 2008 Vimeo has roughly 440,000 members which is just a fraction of what YouTube has. I sincerely hope that Vimeo will continue to grow and gain market share as I’d hate to see such amazing site fall victim to not being able to catch on with the masses. With that said, Vimeo’s intelligent users are one of the strongest reasons to use the site, so I imagine most involved are trying to walk the fine line between driving more users to the website while keeping the trash of the internet at other video sites. The numbers from Compete and Quantcast are very promising and show growth of over 200% from April 2007 to April of 2008 with a continued growth of about 20% per month… so the outlook for Vimeo is promising.

Look, I’m not going to lie… I don’t mind being single and actually most of the time I love it. Truthfully, most of my friends make it easy for me, after watching their relationships I’d never wish that on my own worst enemy, much less myself. I see my friends going through all of the pains of a relationship and I sit back on my lazy ass running around my bachelor pad toying with all of my expensive electronics and three flat panel televisions in a spoiled drama-free life. I order pizza far too often, go grocery shopping once every fiscal quarter and pay someone else to clean my house. I guess now that I reflect back I should be as happy as a kid in a candy store…

You know what? Damn women to hell! Seriously, if they didn’t have to stroll in looking all beautiful and smelling perfect I could go about my blissful and peaceful life and be none the wiser… but no, they have to go around spreading their commie propaganda that I can’t truly be happy while all alone. I probably wouldn’t be so spiteful about the whole thing if it was easier to meet real honest-to-God women, but finding a good woman this day and age is like asking for a cure for cancer, AIDs and heart disease all at the same time. Frankly I’d rather punch myself in the junk than even think about it.

I know most people will read this diatribe and think they have me locked down to a classic case of commitment phobia but that is the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is, I’d love to fall hook line and sinker for the woman of my dreams if for no other reason than I don’t want to be collecting Social Security while my kids are still in high school… I’m not getting any younger you know. I’m all for the gung-ho relationship with the right woman but let’s be honest, I have better luck winning the MegaMillions Jackpot… which is just a mere 175,711,536 to 1 shot.

I don’t want to sound overly-cynical as the purpose of this post was to point out the sheer hilarity of the Times Online article but I’m at my wit’s end here. I’m done searching for the right woman; I’ve tried just about everything… I’m a decent enough looking guy, make decent money, own a nice car, nice condo, and am what I consider a good catch. I’ve tried internet dating, meeting new friends and even church as of late to no avail. I guess I’ll just follow the wisdom of the article and wait until some of the women that spurned me before get to be in their mid-thirties and desperate… which is fine with me as I have another expensive gadget purchase with my name on it anyway.

Just think about it, you no longer have to clog inboxes with 800 pictures of your sleeping toddler… now you can just send your friends your Picasa Web Album URL and call it a day. Trust me, they’ll thank you later. I know people who use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have a place to host their images but there is really something to be said for an actual web album site dedicated to being just that. Flickr is amazingly popular and a great site but to get the full experience you have to pay a monthly fee… why do that when Google gives you just as good an option for free?

So, you have Picasa installed and your images edited and looking pretty, your eight year old doesn’t look like the spawn of satan anymore thanks to that nifty red eye removal tool… and now you want to show the world (or just your friends). First thing is first, you need to sign up for a Picasa Web Albums account. The process is quick and painless and if you have a Gmail or Adsense account you can use the same login details. (note: you don’t have to use Picasa to use Picasa Web Albums or vice versa, they both can work together or alone).

1. Choose your desired username and enter your First and Last name. On the next page choose “I accept” to the Google Terms of Service.

2. BAM! You’re ready to get uploading (again, sorry for the Emeril reference).

3. You can upload directly from the website by hitting the “Upload” button or you can upload via the Picasa application, which is what is shown below. In Picasa hit the “Sign in to web albums” link in the upper left corner.

04. Once you are signed in uploading your images or folders are as easy as right clicking (either the folder or individual images) and choosing “Upload to Web Album…”

05. When you choose to upload you will be given the option to create a new album or to add to an existing album. You can also choose to resize the images from a drop down box and give a description and location of the album. You also have the ability to make the album public (anyone can view) or unlisted which allows only people you choose to view the album.

Once you’ve finished uploading your files you can view your web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/username, for instance mine is http://picasaweb.google.com/bradgroux. I encourage you to look around your Picasa Web Album where you can add image captions, input the location the picture was taken, create slideshows, order prints, share and organize. You have 1GB of storage space to share your photos, so upload at will. You can take a look at the album I uploaded here, the images were taken with my iPhone last September in Boston, MA at an Underworld show.

The MySpace Effect as I call it is the feeling you get when you log into your MySpace (and for you crazy kids FaceBook) to find that you have “New Messages” or a “New Comment” or “New Picture Comment” or any of the other pretty bold letters you see when you log into your profile. For some reason when people log in and find that someone, one of their beloved friends has left them a new comment or sent them a message they get a feeling of euphoria if even for a split second… because at that very moment they are thinking to themselves… “Someone likes me!” Why in the hell as a race of intelligent beings do we let something so small and trivial have an emotional impact on us? We’re just silly bastards that’s why.

The funniest part about it is the message or comment could be stupid or simply derogatory like when you lovely ladies out there get the messages from 20 random men using their smooth pickup lines like “I think ur hot, wanna fuck?” People still feel special when the see the most idiotic or random messages from others, crazy indeed. I know I’ve logged into MySpace a few times and not seen a new message or comment and been like “WTF nobody loves me?!” Yeah, I know it is sad but I sure as shit know I’m not alone when I do that… in the end we are all shallow and trivial bastards. Okay, maybe that was a little harsh… but we do all just want to feel loved, or at least want to know if people are thinking about us.

If you think the MySpace Effect is something new you are sadly mistaken, because the same types of messages and feelings have been around since the dawn of civilization… I guess this is where the whole gift-card market really comes into play. For me it all started when I was a kid and friends would call on the phone or leave a message on the answering machine or even write a short note and slide it through the vent of my locker. Then it moved on to having a beeper/pager and getting paged by your friends, it was especially cool when they entered in numbers and you tried to either flip the pager over or decipher the code using the alphabet on the phone numbers… then it moved on to emails and now we’ve moved on to cell phone calls, text messages and the beloved MySpace messages.

In the end I guess the fact that we are social animals is the main reason for needing this trivial interaction with one another. Sure it is great talking to people but when you receive a note from a friend, a card from a lover or a MySpace message from some random tramp wanting to show you her hot webcam we just can’t really get enough… it just makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Like all things the feel-good of the MySpace Effect probably has an expiration date coming soon, the home phone gave way to cell phones, notes gave way to emails and texts, emails gave way to MySpace messages so what is going to push the “social networking” messages out of the way? I’m just pissed I wasn’t around to invest in Hallmark.

Hurry, someone send me a MySpace message and help me pad my ego a little more. KTHXBYE.

Currently listening to: Markus Schulz - I Am