A script that has been circulated around YouTube comments causing the page to redirect to another website with a disturbing and digusting video.

This is obviously a malicious act and all I can really suggest is that you avoid the site until YouTube/Google can rectify this issue.

NewTeeVee.com have published an interview with TubeMogul’s Brett Wilson. One of the things he takes exception with is the expression ‘viral video.’

Brett Wilson:

There are a few buzzwords that irk me. First is “viral video.” A viral video is a rare and beautiful thing, but we know that only about .33 percent of videos on YouTube have over a million views, and there are a lot that are effective that have far fewer views (53 percent of videos on YouTube have less than 500 views). People throw around this term carelessly to describe any video made for the web. Let’s just use the term web video. I was cheering when Rob Davis from Ogilvy said the same thing on stage this week at the Brightcove Video Monetization Summit in NY.

I’ve noticed this particularly on television where every online video mentioned is considered a ‘viral’ video.

None of my videos have gone ‘viral.’ But you could be forgiven for thinking they had the plague since no one goes near any of them…

Kiddsock wrote in the comments:

Remember Battle of the YouTube Stars/Non-Stars by DiGiTiLsOuL & JenLuv37 ?? Someone has brought it back! Check out Users SubscriberSURVIVOR.

I want to talk about Subscriber Survivor in a moment. But just in case anyone isn’t aware JenLuv37′s Battle Of The YouTube Non-Stars is now in it’s third season, hosted by SamProof. (Though it does seem to be on hiatus at the moment due to his involvement in the Ford Fiesta Movement.) You can listen to the interview I did with SamProof about Non-Stars on The JOJCAST.

Subscriber Survivor is actually a lot fun. It models that YouTube Stars/Non-Stars format that many of us will be familiar with, and the three hosts’ antics are as entertaining as the antics of the contestants. Contestants are subjected to ‘Immunity Challenges’ and one contestant is automatically passed through to the next round (this is judged by the hosts themselves).

There is a part of me that wonders how long this competition will last though. It suffers from some (shall we say) ‘intellectual property issues.’ The first episode features a lot of Los Del Rio’s version of the Macarena and I guess the contestants – some of who are YouTube Partners – might be grateful that the copyrighted music appears on this separate channel and not their own.

One final caveat… If you want to actually affect the outcome of this competition you are required to subscribe to every contestant in the competition. There’s something rather odd about voting someone out of a competition that you just subscribed to.

Check it out: Subscriber Survivor

YouTube are very insistent that their closed caption audio transcription service is in beta and when you stop to test it out for yourself, you quickly realise why. It leaves a lot to be desired. But, on the upside, the gap between what is actually said and what is ‘transcribed’ lends itself to much hilarity.

YouTube Closed Captions: Twish1999 Is Payment For The Well?

Take, for example, this offering from Twish1999.

What she actually says:

I’d repair you in a flash.

What YouTube ‘transcribes’:

I’m payment for the well.

Have you encountered any other examples of YouTube Closed Caption hilarity? Let me know in the comments…

Music videos are traditionally the most popular, most viewed content on YouTube. YouTube and Universal teamed up to create VEVO, with content from a variety of record companies. It was going to solve all the disputes about copyright material and royalties and ad revenues. In theory, at least…

Only there is a problem. Certainly for anybody outside of the United States.

“This video contains content from VEVO, who has decided to block it in your country.”

In some ways I am quite sympathetic to the problem. It harks back to a time when dividing up intellectual property rights across the world made sense. Back then different companies would produce and sell physical hard copy for different territories. In a sense VEVO – and others – are trying to do the same thing online. Only to do this effectively online means to have duplicated content which is blocked or allowed access depending on the geographical location of the viewer.

As a consumer of music videos online it may be annoying to take the time to figure out which version you’re able to watch, but it isn’t the end of the world. Only… According to Mashable removing ‘duplicate content’ is a major priority of VEVO:

- The music video site is focusing on getting rid of duplicate videos. If you have ever browsed YouTube, you’ll find that many music videos do, in fact, have duplicates.

Does this mean anyone outside of the territories VEVO services will just miss out altogether?

YouTube have launched yet another blog… this one aimed squarely at content creators. It features video project ideas – such as video reviews, puppetry videos – as well as general YouTube news (cross posted from YouTube’s main blog) and promotions for things like Davos, Dr. Phil’s arts initiative and Amnesty International.

This blog is to complement the new Creator’s Corner section of the YouTube site which also includes a lot of tips and help as well as “As Seen On YouTube” buttons and special discounts with companies like Flip Video, the Apple Store, Logitech and DFTBA Records.

It will be interesting to see how widely the site is adopted but if you really want to make a video and stuck for ideas it might be a good place to start.

Butterflies – the movie whose tag line reads “You too can YouTube. You too can be a Butterfly” – is now available to watch online. The movie which features the likes of Cory “Mr. Safety” Williams, Michael “What The Buck” Buckley, Jill “xGobobeanx” Hanner and others can now be rented online from Booserver.com.

Have you seen this movie? What did you think? Let me know in the comments…

In the spirit of Vlogtober (the practice of creating a vlog every single day in October), I’ve created a vlog every single day this month. Now you can watch them all through this playlist.

All in all this has been a very rewarding experience and one that I would highly recommend to other video makers. Of course you don’t need to do this during October, any month will do. The point is to get into the habit of sharing your life with others on a daily basis. You’ll learn stuff about yourself – and your video creation process – as you do this too.

A big thank you to Carlo (TheAussieNinja) for the inspiration.

In other news, a big happy birthday to someone who is vital to my YouTube existence – Miss SarryCrey.

For many of us (at least those of us who are Windows users) our first port of call when it came to video editing was Windows Movie Maker. Well now Microsoft have reinvented Movie Maker and included it as part of their Windows Live Essential suite. The program now supports new features like HD support and direct upload to YouTube from within the program itself. Be warned however that Windows Live Movie Maker requires Windows Vista or Windows 7 to run, and sadly gave this Windows XP user no joy whatsoever.

Have you used Windows Live Movie Maker? What did you think of it?

Download the Windows Live Essentials suite

Are you ready to battle?

The Battle Of The YouTube Non-Stars, a competition that pins YouTube newcomers against each other in hopes of bringing some fresh faces to our attention, has returned! This time Non-Star veteran Sam Proof takes over as host from JenLuv37, and we’re already seeing some great content from the competitors.

Round 1:

Battle One – Mungachu VS ObviouslyBenHughes
Battle Two – BreezyFilm VS Schn0zberries
Battle Three – KingOfTheBritains VS Reubnick
[Vote for battles one, two and three here. VOTING ENDS 08/07/09 3AM PST]

JOJ’s Pick: Bob Dylan’s Facebook Song by AlmostFamous83.

Battle Four – Ciwi286 VS AlmostFamous83
Battle Five – JessMEGANT VS Guitar2Adam
Battle Six – TheJoelvanVlietShow VS SexySpoonage
[Vote for battles four, five and six here. VOTING ENDS 08/11/09 3AM PST]

Make sure you subscribe on YouTube for the latest Non-Star developments. Hopefully we’ll be catching up with Sam on the JOJCAST soon.