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New Media News Every Morning

Quentin Tarantino in a “Crazy” Japanese Commercial

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We all love Quentin “Pulp Fiction” Tarantino, agreed? And we also know how weird can he can get. But can you actually dig what Mr. Q is doing in this Japanese commercial? It’s not that there’s something wrong with making a fool out of yourself in exchange for probably millions of yen, but for the sake of reporting can somebody tells us what’s happening in the commercial? Anybody can translate the commercial for us? Or better yet, send us the transcripts?

It’s a commercial for Japan’s Soft Bank, right? As you can see from the video, there was Quentin clad in Japanese Kimono, talking to two Japanese ladies eating noodles from Ajinomoto, a robot dog on a table a real dog together with a Japanese guy. Then the phone attached to the robot dog rings, and an American lady was seen yelling at Quentin on the phone.

Now, what can you deduce from this commercial?

It’s cute though. They all seem so serious about it.

Originally posted on November 5, 2011 @ 8:28 am

Google Gives YouTube Channels a Moderator

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If you want to transform an otherwise “one-way” content site to a “tw0-way” community site, you have to do it one step at a time. And that’s what Google is trying to achieve with its priceless possession – YouTube. After rolling out some social sharing features, Google now deems it just about the right time to encourage more social participation not only to the YouTube site as a whole but to individual content channels created by its users. Hence, to facilitate real-time feedback and discussion on YouTube channels, Google Moderator has just been made available to everyone.

Google Moderator is a versatile, social platform that allows any YouTube user to collect comments, questions or ideas on their channels.  What’s fun about this feature is that your channel viewers can watch a particular rise to the top via this Google Moderator commenting/voting feature. Google has been using Moderator as part of its previous interviews with President Obama as well as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In case you’re interested in using Google Moderator on your YouTube channels, here’s how Google describes how Google Moderator works:

” You set the parameters for the dialogue, including the topic, the type of submissions, and the length of the conversation. Watch as submissions get voted up or down by your audience, and then respond to the top-voted submissions by posting a video on your channel. The platform operates in real-time, and you can remove any content that you or your audience flag as inappropriate. You can also embed the platform on your own website or blog.”

To find out some more examples of how people used Google Moderator on YouTube, watch 11 more videos from users who were asked by Google to try out the Google Moderator. It’s kind of fun, actually.

Originally posted on May 27, 2010 @ 4:52 pm

Yahoo’s Latest Game Plan with Farmville Maker, Zynga

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Yahoo might have scored big time with its recent deal with Zynga, the company responsible for popular Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. The two companies have reached an agreement that will see the integration of Zynga’s social games through Yahoo’s global network.

For Zynga, this could be a viable alternative to its Facebook presence, especially since Yahoo claims of more than 600 million users worldwide across all Yahoo sites. But the question is would users be open to the idea of getting their game on via the Yahoo platform?

Most of those users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars are into these games while at the same time maintaining their social networking profiles and connections on Facebook. Most of them play these games to while away time as they wait for their friends to go online, post updates and links. In short, Zynga games on Facebook are added functionalities for a site which has social networking as the main purpose.

Comparing these to Yahoo which doesn’t have a social networking site. Users go to Yahoo to find/search for information not to socialize. So, I don’t really see these Zynga games easily fitting into the demographics of  Yahoo users.

Still, Yahoo is pretty positive that this deal would be both beneficial to both companies. Hilary Schneider, Yahoo America’s Executive Vice President tells us:

“Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”

And with this deal, Yahoo have finally laid down its social strategy and adds up to its previous partnership with both Facebook and Twitter. Would this finally bring some good tidings to Yahoo as a whole? That we will have to wait and see.

Originally posted on May 26, 2010 @ 8:10 pm

MSN Launches its New Homepage with Bing Search in the Forefront

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You know MSN, right? It’s Microsoft’s equivalent of the Yahoo content network. If you’re a Microsoft fan and an Internet Explorer user, this must be your browser’s start-up page.  For the past couple of months, MSN announced that it was redesigning its homepage and so the site is finally being rolled out to U.S. MSN users.

And what does the new MSN homepage brings to the table? Here’s a quick rundown of its new features:

  • It’s all about Bing – the Bing search box is now larger and is located front and center of your MSN homepage to let you search as quickly as possible. The new homepage also gives you popular topics and an increased prominence of Popular searches. There’s also a new TrendWatch feature which highlights the day’s top movers on Twitter. And finally, an increased focus on editorial programming of search-related content such as videos and images.
  • MSN Local Edition – MSN also has a localized version which gives you specific information depending on your local area. The new homepage now lets you personalize MSN Local and save up to 3 cities to follow.  The new feauture also brings in HyperLocal tweets which uses Bing search to power up local tweets. And MSN Local Edition now offers 3,000 news video clips a week across 36 local markets.
  • More HD videos on the homepage – in-line HD video is now being offered on the MSN homepage with minimal buffering.
  • Social networking on the homepage – Check your Hotmail, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live accounts on the MSN homepage.

Originally posted on May 24, 2010 @ 5:53 pm

Lo and Behold! Google TV Unveiled

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There you go folks. Google has spilled the beans about its latest and grandest plan of conquering our lives. Google has just launched Google TV. This time Google is aiming to bring web contents we enjoy consuming on our computers to the sweetest spot in our homes – those areas where we sit back, relax and enjoy watching TV shows and programs.

But exactly is Google trying to bring in here? It’s not a TV set. It’s not a TV media player but what Google has been known for – software platform. And for Google TV, Google is interweaving the web and TV into a single platform.

Google TV will let us watch contents we enjoy from the web. It has  a built-in search with auto-suggest function, a web browser in Google Chrome, a TV homescreen console, and most importantly it has Android running in the background.

How will Google TV change our viewing habits? And how will it affect commercial TV programs. For our TV viewing habits, Google TV will give us more choices and possibly more TV viewing time. For commercial TV programs, this is like Google hauling competition. Google TV might blur the thin line that separates canned TV programs, to freely available online entertainment content.

So, what’s the big plan? Google is working with Sony and Logitech to bring in Google TV on set-top boxes, Blue-Ray players and other media hardware. Google is also releasing the Google TV SDK and web APIs to let third-party developers create more exciting and fun apps that will run alongside Google TV.

It’s going to be fun and exciting in the next few days. Google TV is certainly going to make waves. And if Apple rocked the tablet world recently, Google will certainly rock the TV world soon as well.

Originally posted on May 20, 2010 @ 5:22 pm