Secrets of Popular YouTube Videos Revealed. Are You Excited!
July 8, 2020
We found “Analysis of YouTube Trending Videos of 2019 (US)” amusing. Here are several of the chucklers we spotted:
First, hot YouTube videos use CAPITAL letter in TITLES.
Second, here are the words you need to use in your YouTube titles and descriptions:
Third, use emojis. The fire emoji is a “hot” addition.
Fourth, rely on “official” as in “official video.” What if the video is not official? Hey, what is this a courtroom. You just need to pass Judge Google, and you are good to go with rehab ads, wonky food info, and nifty fashion ideas.
Fifth, your video title must be 36 to 64 characters. Something like “Macbeth” would suck as a YouTube click magnet.
Sixth, when do you publish your video? Saturday is for losers, gentle reader.
There’s more astounding insights. You are officially ON YOUR OWN.
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2020
The Legacy of HP Management Expertise: Quibi
July 1, 2020
When I hear the name “quibi”, I think of Hewlett Packard in the era of Meg Whitman. My focus narrows to some interesting decisions by the Board of Directors, a somewhat high-profile acquisition, a vendetta which targets a feisty computer scientist, and a great big lawsuit. The lawsuit by the way is of the variety that is likely to be a source of income for attorneys for years to come. You know the litigation matter: Meg Whitman’s former outfit and the Cambridge engineer/scientist Mike Lynch. I will name the word: Autonomy.
I read “The Fall of Quibi: How Did a Starry $1.75bn Netflix Rival Crash So Fast.” What’s interesting about this “real” newspaper’s “real” news story is that it mostly misses the boat or, at the very list, trips over the step when boarding the tube.
The article identifies what anyone listening to chatter in the line up to buy a Starbuck’s confection knows: Short videos, free for some people, no one cares, and an oddball selection of content without programs like Cheers or Seinfeld.
What catches the attention of would be financiers is the number $1.75 billion. What catches the attention of those with Hollywood in their DNA is the name Jeffrey Katzenberg. What catches the attention of the DarkCyber research team is the co Big Dog Meg Whitman.
The “real” news story cares little about Ms. Whitman and her management “successes.” I assume that those researching the story were unaware that some individuals with first hand information about her management expertise were just too difficult to reach. What’s the distance? Maybe a mile, maybe less.
The write up states:
Notionally, Quibi endeavored to industrialize a new frontier of television: short-form narratives – that is, episodes of 15 minutes or less – at its shortest and most expansive.
Okay.
Here’s a promising factoid, courtesy of a Murdoch-owned “real” news outfit:
Meanwhile, several unflattering reports have depicted internal strife behind the scenes. The Wall Street Journal detailed longstanding friction between Katzenberg and Whitman’s working relationship.
DarkCyber believes that there is a ton of useful information floating around about Quibi. There’s a gold mine of information about Ms. Whitman and her approach to guiding a business. There’s even information available to put some meat on the bones of the launch during the pandemic.
What do we get? “Real” news.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2020
When You Were a Young Millionaire, Did You Write This Way?
June 29, 2020
I read “Mixer Co-Founder on Microsoft Pulling the Plug, Twitch’s Market Power, and His Startup Journey.” DarkCyber looks at the universes of live streaming services from our observation post in rural Kentucky.
Games are not an all-encompassing world. The travails of Dr. Disrespect, the odd-ball world of ManyVids, or individuals who haunt NoAgendaStream.com.
These services create an opportunity for bad actors, malefactors, and Dr. Jekylls to sell contraband, engage in questionable transactions, and pass messages mostly off the radar of the local country sheriff in Tennessee.
What caught our attention in the GeekWire article was this passage:
“Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the service for them as quickly and broadly as possible. It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
The young millionaire and digital nabob may want to consider a job in public relations if he is snubbed by an interesting government agency.
Notable phrases:
- Ultimately
- success is dependent
- vision and experiences
- we’ve decided
- operations side
- help the community
- transition
- a new platform.
Yeah, typical 20 something blog speak.
The conclusions we have reached in the DarkCyber intelligence and forecasting center are:
First, Azure couldn’t deliver. If the Softie’s cloud thing can do JEDI, should Azure deliver streaming games? Sure, but it does not.
Second, Microsoft has been friends sort of with Facebook. Does Facebook have a more resilient, agile, responsive, and efficient video service? Facebook may aspire to be social YouTube, but it has a bit of distance to travel.
Third, Microsoft’s mix up with Mixer makes clear that the me to approach to innovation and the blenderized approach to management at Microsoft cannot tap a hot new sector any better than it can update Windows 10.
Net net: DarkCyber is thinking that on our list of soon-to-be-cold technical dinosaurs, Microsoft may find itself making big plans with Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Oracle, among others.
As for the young millionaire, after the election there may be a need for a person with wordsmithing skills, the vocabulary of a millennial lawyer, and the sentence structure of Cicero without the flair unfortunately.
Stephen E Arnold, June 29, 2020
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Microsoft LinkedIn: An Infusion of Skype or Zune?
June 15, 2020
Skype mostly worked. Then the interface became more like Bob’s. The JEDI knight of updates tries to be on the cutting edge of technology. Despite early attempts at video interactions, Microsoft has managed to remain a few paces off the lead. TechRepublic shares the late party invitation addressed to Microsoft’s professional social media platform: “LinkedIn Unveils New Virtual Events Feature For Communities To Stay Connected During COVID-19.”
LinkedIn’s new teleconferencing feature is Virtual Events and it allows organizations to connect in real time, so it is basically the same as Zoom. Does Microsoft want those looking for a job or consulting gigs to make the shift from Zoom or the interesting Google services? We noted:
“Rishi Jobanputra, head of product for Linkedin pages, said Virtual Events allows brands to target a specific audience and design a more personalized experience while making it easier for brands to share and archive their video content so users can easily find it. This not only extends the shelf life of the event but also allows organizations to target industries with content that may have may have been missed.”
LinkedIn is also integrating the Pages, LinkedIn Live, and Events so they will seamlessly fit together.
Several big companies have already successfully used Virtual Events, when in-person events were forced to cancel. But some virtual conferences, meetings, and hook ups have not delivered. Human interaction remains popular among many people; for example, those without sufficient bandwidth, a computing device, or an interest in the virtual world of experience.
Worth monitoring? Perhaps the events will be on Twitch or Microsoft’s Mixer? Wait! Isn’t Mixer a virtual meeting operation too?
Okay, Zune that and out.
Whitney Grace, June 15, 2020
DarkCyber for June 9, 2020, Is Now Available: AI and Music Composition
June 9, 2020
The DarkCyber for June 9, 2020, presents a critical look at music generated by artificial intelligence. The focus is the award-winning song in the Eurovision AI 2020 competition. The interview discusses the characteristics of AI-generated music, its impact on music directors, how professional musicians deal with machine-created music, and the implications of non-numan music. The program is a criticism of the state-of-the-art for smart software. Instead of focusing on often over-hyped start ups and large companies making increasingly exaggerated claims, the Australian song and the two musicians make clear that AI is a work in progress. You can view the video at https://vimeo.com/427227666.
Kenny Toth, June 9, 2020
Astronaut: Fly Blind into the Video Universe
June 4, 2020
Like unwatched videos? Have a short attention span? We have a suggestion.
Astronaut.io. The service is an intriguing, if potentially bewildering, time killer. The site asks users to imagine they are astronauts, peering on people’s fleeting moments through the window. Then, against a view of Earth from space, they stream random, obscure YouTube videos in 10-second bites until one’s serendipity meter is full. In Wired’s piece, “Watch a Surprisingly Touching Stream of Unwatched YouTube Videos,” writer Liz Stinson explains:
“Scenes from a high school weight lifting competition might follow a birthday party in Texas that follows a man in Russia repairing his motorbike. You never know what to expect, yet the videos share something in common. Andrew Wong and James Thompson created an algorithm that seeks videos fitting specific criteria: uploaded within the past week, with generic file names (IMG, MOV WMV) as titles, and zero views. The result is a fascinating glimpse at the mundane, perplexing, and oftentimes sweet events of everyday life. … One video seamlessly follows another with no buffering. Wong coded three players into the website, allowing two videos to buffer as the third played. This creates a smooth vignette effect where you glean just a bit of context about each clip. Videos last no more than 10 seconds and often change just as you begin to care (a button at the bottom of the page lets you linger on a video). That can be frustrating, but ephemerality was key.”
Wong compares the effect to glimpsing images out a train window just long enough to pique one’s curiosity. Stinson observes that most makers of these untitled, little-viewed videos probably never expected anyone but their nearest and dearest to see them. She writes:
“The tension between the uneasiness of this benign voyeurism and the sensation of feeling connected to a stranger is what makes Astronaut.io so wonderful.”
Perhaps. It can certainly capture the attention. Check it out, and see if the poetic effect is for you.
Cynthia Murrell, June 4, 2020
Facial Recognition: A Partial List
June 3, 2020
DarkCyber noted “From RealPlayer to Toshiba, Tech Companies Cash in on the Facial Recognition Gold Rush.” The write up provides two interesting things and one idea which is like a truck tire retread.
First, the write up points out that facial recognition or FR is a “gold rush.” That’s a comparison which eluded the DarkCyber research team. There’s no land. No seller of heavy duty pants. No beautiful scenery. No wading in cold water. No hydro mining. Come to think of it, FR is not like a gold rush.
Second, the write up provides a partial list of outfits engaged in facial recognition. The word partial is important. There are some notable omissions, but 45 is an impressive number. That’s the point. Just 45?
The aspect of the write the DarkCyber team ignored is this “from the MBA classroom” observation:
Despite hundreds of vendors currently selling facial recognition technology across the United States, there is no single government body registering the technology’s rollout, nor is there a public-facing list of such companies working with law enforcement. To document which companies are selling such technology today, the best resource the public has is a governmental agency called the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Governments are doing a wonderful job it seems. Perhaps the European Union should step forward? What about Brazil? China? Russia? The United Nations? With Covid threats apparently declining, maybe the World Health Organization? Yep, governments.
Then, after wanting a central listing of FR vendors, this passage snagged one of my researcher’s attention:
NIST is a government organization responsible for setting scientific measurement standards and testing novel technology. As a public service, NIST also provides a rolling analysis of facial recognition algorithms, which evaluates the accuracy and speed of a vendor’s algorithms. Recently, that analysis has also included aspects of facial recognition field like algorithmic bias based on race, age, and sex. NIST has previously found evidence of bias in a majority of algorithms studied.
Yep, NIST. The group has done an outstanding job for enterprise search. Plus the bias in algorithms has been documented and run through the math grinding wheel for many years. Put in snaps of bad actors and the FR system does indeed learn to match one digital watermark with a similar digital watermark. Run kindergarten snaps through the system and FR matches are essentially useless. Bias? Sure enough.
Consider these ideas:
- An organization, maybe Medium, should build a database of FR companies
- An organization, maybe Medium, should test each of the FR systems using available datasets or better yet building a training set
- An organization, maybe Medium, should set up a separate public policy blog to track government organizations which are not doing the job to Medium’s standards.
There is an interest in facial recognition because there is a need to figure out who is who. There are some civil disturbances underway in a certain high profile country. FR systems may not be perfect, but they may offer a useful tool to some. On the other hand, why not abandon modern tools until they are perfect.
We live in an era of good enough, and that’s what is available.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2020
DarkCyber for May 26, 2020 Now Available
May 26, 2020
DarkCyber for May 26, 2020, is an online video program focusing on cyber crime, intelligence, and lesser known Internet services. This week’s stories include NSO Group in the PR spotlight, Covid 19 phishing, Germany limits intel services scope of action, a source for bad actor hackers, ETSI.org as a job hunter’s game preserve, and four new drones for surveillance and kinetic action. (Kinetic means explosive munitions.)
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold and the DarkCyber research team.
In addition to our news programs, we have begun adding special videos. You can view the most recent interview segments with a CIA professional is DarkCyber Exclusive: Litigation Likely for Short Selling.
More special video features are in the works. Remember. DarkCyber contains no demeaning “begging for dollars” pleas, no content marketing, and no subscription fees. As a result, DarkCyber videos and blog posts deliver information that may be difficult to locate and analysis that can cause consternation.
This week’s program is at https://vimeo.com/422426350.
Kenny Toth, May 26, 2020
DarkCyber Exclusive: Steele Aims for the Hearts of Wall Street Short Sellers
May 23, 2020
We posted a follow up interview with Robert David Steele, a former CIA professional. This video expands on the allegations of wide spread, systemic fraud. Steele explains why a government task force is needed. He describes the scope of the audit, involving six financial giants and a back office operation. If you are interested in learning about alleged skyscraper-sized financial misbehavior, you can view the video on Vimeo at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2020
Zooming: Uber Lets Off Some Passengers
May 13, 2020
DarkCyber does not know if this story is spot on, but it is interesting. The estimable UK tabloid the Daily Mail (yes, the one with the videos one cannot turn off without five or six clicks) published “Today will be Your Last Working Day with Uber.” Other firms allegedly have used Zoom videoconferencing to inform the surplus humanoids that they can find their future elsewhere. (DarkCyber loves that phrase “Find your future elsewhere, don’t you, gentle reader?)
According to the estimable news service:
At least 3,500 Uber employees learned that they were being laid off in a three minute Zoom call last week.
The online version of the story includes the allegedly “real” video of an Uber person (still employed at the time) bid farewell to the Übermenschen.
The person nuking these individuals has a fascinating title; to wit:
Head of Uber’s customer service at Uber’s Phoenix Center of Excellence.
Zoom is in the news, but in this instance, it is not the insights of the video conferencing firm’s security advisor. The use of Zoom by a go go Silicon Valley firm makes the headline. DarkCyber wants to add that the Daily Mail’s headline is very Googley.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2020
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