What's Good About the New YouTube Design?

With the announcement of the new $100 million strategy to incorporate original design and content, YouTube has planned an intensive six week schedule to enhance the user experience. Owned by Google, YouTube's new design will see many transformations and benefits caused by Google's far reaching influence in the virtual world.

One of the most striking features of the new YouTube is the bold and futuristic look. Designed aesthetically to reflect a sharper UXDriven website, the new look of YouTube is pleasant and sophisticated. The Channels 3.5 design is simple and easy to navigate.

In the new and improved YouTube design, advertising on channels is more organized and well thought out. The flexible designing to place advertising allows the channel user to customize and create user flows and layouts that effective rather than the previous practice of randomly placing uploads and playlists. The new decision divides the YouTube UI in three or more environments. This tabbed browsing quality includes different environments like Videos, Feed, Custom and Featured. Making the UI more simplistic, the new design is compartmentalized to feature different types of content.

Another positive addition to the new design of YouTube is the integration of Google+. Although this change does not directly add to the features of the website, YouTube's reach will expand further with the addition of other Google ventures. The addition of the Google Search Plus Your World will make YouTube more powerful and accessible than before. Google's power on paid and organic searches will take YouTube to newer levels of visibility.

Marketers prefer to invest in websites that are capable of monitoring the viewers to detect patterns and make advertising more effective. Realizing the importance of analytics, YouTube followed the footsteps of Facebook Insights and Google Analytics to introduce the YouTube Analytics. This platform is robust and is accompanied by new metrics to monitor the website for demographics, views, comments, shares and measure Likes, Dislikes and playbacks.

Author Bio: Annabelle is a writer by profession and likes to blog about her varied interests. She represents Airsoft Gun and BB gun online store.

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Is Pawn Stars Real or Fake?

Although many recently reality shows have been discovered as being fake, the presence of these so called "reality" shows are not going anywhere. This History Channel's most popular program has often been called fake. Pawn Stars is viewed world wide and talked about across the globe. A small pawn shop in Las Vegas keeps it's television viewers entertained with countless historic items coming through the doors. But is Pawn Stars for real? A real person from the show speaks out on his YouTube channel in this video.

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Five Technologies It’s Time To Let Go Of

Technology marches on at such an impressive pace that we've had little time to mourn those inventions of the last fifty years that are no longer with us. The disappearance of such pieces of live-fast, die-young tech as the Dial-Up Modem seems especially odd when you consider that some entirely dated technology has held on to our affections for ages. Here are five technologies, some older than others, that we really should have euthanised by now.
Vinyl

There’s a pretty good chance that if you’re still harping on about vinyl, there are few other things you need to let go of. These things may include: your hair, the notion that teenagers are going to start playing on your recently cut lawn, your recently divorced wife of thirty years and all hope that Prog Rock is, and ever was, listenable.
You may even only have a physical age of twenty five, but your love of analog has aged you irrevocably. Completely unable to discern the ‘warmth’ of analog recordings, it’s only logical for me to conclude that, given your age and your regular consumption of music, you simply have Tinnitus.
Wristwatches

Wristwatches are still valid as an accessory, but as technology? Ok, so reaching into your pockets to grab whatever clock-possessing tech you have on your person is a little like returning to the days of the pocket watch. But it’s not like we’re in the trenches of the Somme: it’s time we can spare.
And no, I’m not saying that people should be throwing their timepieces into the fires of the Swiss Mount Doom from whence they were forged. It’s just that there are people out there, who genuinely believe that wristwatches are necessary, as opposed to being yet another way for them to preen and flash their wealth in your plebeian face.
Landline Telephones

Doomsayers tend to forecast the death of any technology that is incorporated into our mobile phones with great enthusiasm. This seems kind of ironic considering that after decades of mobile-phone usage, the landline still isn’t dead. Nevertheless, everyone under the age of sixty could live without their landlines, were it not for the inflated prices you have to pay to phone anyone you don’t particularly want to phone. Depending on where you live, you can get round this and live without your landline already: toll-free numbers are free to call via Skype.  You know, as they say they should be.
Traditional Photography

Subject to precisely the same sentimental nonsense as vinyl, traditional photography is meaninglessly touted as somehow ‘more authentic’. Typical digital cameras on the market nowadays match the resolution of film with less noise and grain. And you don’t get more ‘what you see is what you get’ than the digital experience either.
Sure, film has complex benefits over digital. But if you’re not a high-tier professional, preaching about them is a kind of Clear Blue for pretentiousness. And the snobbery that goes with that impression is justifiably detected: the beauty of digital is that it opens photography to those who don’t have to make every single shot count. Today’s photographers can learn on the job without having to spend prohibitive amounts of money on film and on developing their pictures. Typical digital camera prices allow absolutely everyone to get in on the fun.  The easy portability of image data even means that everybody can choose to ignore your holiday snaps via email, Facebook, Flickr and all kinds of avenues.
Games Consoles

Whipping up a little drama in the gaming industry is a little difficult these days. Claiming anything is dead or dying and trying to sound especially original is impossible. Right now, smartphones are pushing a pillow into the face of handheld gaming whilst their own pricing and lack of innovation are considered symptoms of a coming implosion. Then there’s the PC, which has been slowly throttled by the home games console for over a decade.
And even games consoles are endangered technology. Seven generations of consoles have established a fairly predictable five-year cycle of innovation that has suddenly been broken. The technology behind the consoles is simply getting too expensive: Sony’s Playstation 3 has taken nearly five years to dip below £200 in the UK, whereas its predecessor took less than two years to reach that price point.
And what would the console manufacturers even do with a new generation? Nintendo’s Wii-U, which is apparently controlled by a fisher-price tablet computer looks an especially desperate attempt to answer that question. Games developers too also seem reluctant to step forward, production costs being as inflated as they are. Even consumer enthusiasm for the next big thing cannot be depended on: graphics are now subject to a law of diminishing returns that will mean that whatever these companies come up with next, we’ll shrug it off and barely recognise the difference in fidelity.
Something’s got to give. Cloud gaming services like Onlive mean that the platform you use is, in theory, irrelevant. Perhaps we’re headed to a future where games consoles are like any other entertainment player: a badged unit built around shared, standardised technology. Meanwhile the march of the consoles towards being fully featured PCs will be complete, and both platforms will die in the collision.

Author Bio: Steph Wood likes to stay ahead of the tech game and writes content for electronics retailer Comet, who sell a cheap iPad 2 in the UK market.

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The Techniques of Infomercials and Why They Work

In the brand management and marketing industry the idea of an infomercial is largely frowned upon. This is understandably so due to the overly enthusiastic infomercial presenter, annoying catchphrases, and obscure products present in all infomercials. However, despite this apparent repulsion infomercials do exceptionally well in this modern environment of advanced branding and marketing techniques despite the ongoing development of digital platforms and social media. Surprisingly, figures show that infomercial advertising brings in over £91 billion of revenue each year so it’s quite clear that something is working. But of course we know that, as we all have some infomercial product stashed away at the back of our kitchen cupboard and have at least once been glued to the infomercial television screen.

The Negative Perception of Infomercials 

First of all, let’s have a look at why infomercials have such a bad reputation amongst branding and marketing officers. The look and feel of infomercial advertising with the eager salesman and testimonials seem a bit downmarket. Thus for many brands that rely on the ‘cool’ factor or have an upmarket brand image, infomercials could tarnish the brand. Also, brand advertisers simply believe that infomercial videos simply do not work. With the advanced marketing techniques and high budgets of campaigns today, it is commonly believed that something that simple cannot be effective.  Finally, TV infomercials run against the grain of advertising in general and therefore against all the knowledge of an advertiser.

Advantages and Techniques of Infomercials

Now let’s look at the advantages of an infomercial and what techniques make the infomercial products sell. The most obvious advantage is production costs; an infomercial costs about a quarter less than most regular television ads. Second of all, because of the length of infomercials, the advert acts as a self-contained unit or presentation. Thus if you have a product with a specific function that sets it apart from competitor products, that cannot be fully explained in a slogan or in small print, infomercials will fully explain, answer any questions of doubt a viewer may have, and then re-explain the infomercial product. Just have a look at this example for fitness equipment, the 'Standing Ab' machine. Believe it or not, infomercials are engaging and convincing and if done properly, converts into sales. But wait, there’s more!

Neuro-linguistic Programming 

The addictive quality that some television infomercials seem to possess can be accounted to a very specific technique used by infomercial producers, namely neuro-linguistic programming. Neuro-linguistic programming refers to a specific take on communication, personal development and psychotherapy that was developed in the seventies. It states that there is a connection between neurological processes and language in certain patterns of behaviours that have been learnt through experience. Although not supported by scientific evidence, its application was made popular by Tony Robbins, a self help guru, motivational speaker and infomercial expert. Whether or not the psychotherapy behind infomercials is correct or not, there’s no doubt that the infomercial’s call to action phrases get viewers dialling

Author Bio: Penny Munroe is an avid writer in the branding and marketing techniques used to sell products and services. After being persuaded into buying a steam mop and steam cleaning machines on an informercial, Munroe decided to look into why infomercials are so convincing, even though most of us are so repelled by them.

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