WebProNews

Tag: YouTube

  • The Five Guys Review Guy Gets Songified [VIDEO]

    Remember the Five Guys Burgers and Fries review guy? He’s a guy who stole our hearts from the front seat of his car and set the bar pretty high for all future fast food reviewers to follow.

    Oh my goodness, oh my dayum.

    Well, the world-famous Gregory Brothers team has put their own spin on the now-classic viral video by giving it the “Songify” treatment. The Gregory Brothers have been “Songifiying” the internet’s best viral vids for quite some time, to the tune of 250 million+ views.

    You may also know them from their other little YouTube series, called Autotune the News.

    Without further ado, here’s their take on YouTube user Daym Drops’ amazing five Guys review, entitled OH MY DAYUM.

  • YouTube Just Got A Lot Better On PlayStation 3

    Google announced the launch of a new YouTube app for PlayStation 3 today.

    “The app brings the full experience to PlayStation 3 for the first time, helping viewers find their favorite channels and videos on PS3, while giving YouTube creators another platform to build an audience,” a Google spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    The search feature includes search suggestions and instant video results while you type. You can sign in to find the latest videos from your YouTube subscriptions (including official music videos), and you can now use your phone as a remote.

    “With a quick pairing process, you can control YouTube on PS3 with a smartphone,” says product manager Sarah Ali. “Find a video on your phone and with a button it’ll play on the big screen. While the video is playing you can control it from the phone, or keep browsing YouTube for the next one.”

    The app is available in North America in the PlayStation Store under My Channels. Google says it will come to more countries in the coming months.

  • Remember, Google’s Newest Ranking Signal Is Only 1 Of Over 200

    Google announced on Friday that starting this week, it would begin using the number of “valid” copyright removal notices it gets for a site as a ranking signal. This immediately rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

    In fact, various groups were quick to speak out about Google’s new policy. The EFF, for example, called the policy “opaque,” and expressed its concerns about how Google will make its determinations, and about the road to recourse (or lack thereof) that sites will have.

    “Sites may not know about, or have the ability to easily challenge, notices sent to Google,” said Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney, John Bergmayer. “And Google has set up a system that may be abused by bad faith actors who want to suppress their rivals and competitors. Sites that host a lot of content, or are very popular, may receive a disproportionate number of notices (which are mere accusations of infringement) without being disproportionately infringing. And user-generated content sites could be harmed by this change, even though the DMCA was structured to protect them.”

    Other have questioned how Google will deal with these notices with regards to its own properties – namely, YouTube. YouTube, of course, gets plenty of takedown requests, but they go through a different system (which Danny Sullivan has broken down into great detail). In fact, the takedown request form Google pointed to in its announcement of the feature, specifically mentions YouTube:

    “If you have a specific legal issue concerning YouTube, please visit this link for further information. Please do not use this tool to report issues that relate to YouTube.”

    Sullivan says Google told him, however, that “notices filed against YouTube through the separate YouTube copyright infringement reporting system will be combined with those filed against YouTube through the Google Search reporting system,” and that Google will treat YouTube like any other site. However, he reports, Google does not expect YouTube to be negatively affected by this, nor does it expect other popular user-generated content sites. Google, he says, told him that it will take into account other factors, besides the number of notices it receives.

    Well, this makes sense, because Google was pretty clear in its announcement that it was simply adding this as a signal – as in one of over 200.

    “We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results,” Google’s Amit Singhal said. “Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site.”

    YouTube and other popular sites likely have enough other signals working in their favor to counter this one signal. It doesn’t sound like Google’s newest signal is necessarily going to be its weightiest.

  • The Walking Dead Season 2 Deleted Scene Hits YouTube

    A deleted scene from The Walking Dead Season 2 is making the rounds on YouTube. The show has become a huge hit, and the Internet has only served to build the buzz for the show, which starts its third season in October.

    YouTube has no doubt contributed, and continues to do so ahead of the new season:

    Here’s the clip (Warning: Graphic Violence):

  • YouTube App Not Included in iOS 6

    Today developers for Apple’s iOS mobile platform were treated to beta 4 of iOS 6, the latest version of the operating system. As the beta moves forward, developers and Apple fans alike have been able to see more of what Apple’s vision of the future of the iPhone and iPad really is. It turns out that vision does not include a pre-installed YouTube app.

    Engadget was able to contact Apple about the glaring omission, though not much was revealed. Their source stated that the licensing deal between Apple and Google to include the YouTube app in iOS has, or is quickly coming to, and end. The YouTube app will remain a part of iOS 5 and older, but newer versions of the OS will not have the familiar old-style TV set icon on the homescreen.

    Luckily, the Engadget Apple source also mentioned that Google is already working on an App Store version of the YouTube app for iOS. Development on such an app shouldn’t take too long, though it will still have to pass through Apple’s arduous App Store approval process. It’s a given, though, that the app will become one of the most popular in the App Store when it is released.

    It makes sense for Apple to let Google go it alone with their own YouTube app. The YouTube app included in iOS was a front-and-center icon that provided access directly to a product from Google, which has become one of Apple’s biggest competitors. This fits with the trend of Apple replacing the functionality of other Google products on iOS, such as Maps, with its own software.

  • Lollapalooza Streaming Live This Weekend on YouTube

    Lollapalooza Streaming Live This Weekend on YouTube

    Today, thousands of music lovers will gather in Chicago’s Grant Park for the three-day blowout that is Lollapalooza. Unfortunately, the large majority of people who would love to go to the festival will not be able to attend in person.

    But you can still watch the the performances live, thanks to YouTube.

    Starting Friday at 2:30 EST, you’ll be able to watch streaming shows on two different channels. First up today on Channel 1 is Yellow Ostrich, and on channel 2 it’s Michael Kiwanuka. UPDATE: Someone just proposed on the main stage…

    If those names don’t ring a bell, later in the day you can watch The Shins, The Afghan Whigs, and The Black Keys.

    This year’s headliner, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, will perform at 9 pm EST on Saturday night.

    YouTube streamed Lollapalooza last year as well, with impressive results. Here’s what they had to say in a blog post:

    Live shows by artists like U2, Kenny Chesney and Coldplay have drawn millions of viewers to YouTube, and last year’s Lollapalooza webcast saw viewers spending an average of 44 minutes watching the show. We look forward to keeping you glued to your screen again this year.

    Nothing’s like a live show, but hey, if you can’t be there you might as well follow the fun from the comfort of your own (air conditioned) home.

    If live music isn’t your thing, you can download some free tracks from some of the performers, made possible by Google.

  • Check Out These New YouTube Feed Features

    Check Out These New YouTube Feed Features

    YouTube has introduced some new changes to the homepage feed, including bigger video thumbnails, more information about uploader activity, more user control over what appears in the feed, and labels for videos you’ve already watched.

    “We restructured the design to show bigger, higher-quality thumbnails,” says product manager Kurt Wilms. “We’ve also included more information related to the video. If an uploader has commented, posted, or added a video to a playlist, we surface this information so you can get a better picture of all the activity related to the video.”

    “We’ve introduced a menu that lets you quickly control what content appears in your feed,” adds Wilms. “To bring up this menu, simply hover over an item in the feed and click the arrow that appears in the upper right of the item. You can then choose to hide the item you have selected, opt to only show uploads from that user, or unsubscribe from that user, all directly in your feed.”

    Here, you can see these features in action:

    New YouTube features

    And here’s what it looks like if you’ve watched a video:

    video watched

    YouTube also reminds users that they can always click “view” at the top of the feed to either see only highlights or everything from the accounts you follow. It shows highlights by default, so you may be missing some things.

  • YouTube Launches The I Files, A New Hub For Investigative Journalism

    It’s clear that YouTube is and will remain one of the top landscapes for breaking news, citizen journalism, and in-depth reporting that may have never found its way to the public through more traditional media outlets. All you have to do is think about the Arab Spring, user-submitted police videos, and undercover exposés on topics like animal cruelty to confirm this.

    In order to promote their position as one of the new frontiers for journalism, YouTube has just announced the launch of The I Files, a new channel that curates some of the best investigative reporting on the web.

    The content will be curated by the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the channel has received funding from the Knight Foundation.

    Here’s what YouTube had to say about The I Files in a blog post:

    In this age of abundant content and short attention spans, thoughtful analysis and rigorous reporting is more important than ever before. That’s why we’re so pleased that investigative reporting now has a new home on YouTube—The I Files. Curated by the Center for Investigative Reporting with funding from the Knight Foundation, The I Files will be a hub and community for investigative journalism on the web, showcasing reporting that digs deep into stories, gives background to complex issues, and reveals details that help us make better sense of our world.

    Contributors at the launch of The I Files Include The New York Times, the BBC, NPR, ABC News, and Al Jazeera. Hopefully, the new channel will make sure that great investigative stories don’t get lost in the 72 hours worth of content uploaded to YouTube every minute.

  • Government Is Now Issuing Takedown Requests Of YouTube Videos

    The copyright moguls who police YouTube make the lives of those just looking for entertainment unnecessarily hard. There’s something to be said for protecting your copyright, but sometimes things just get outrageous. The latest takedown is probably the most outrageous of them all.

    TechDirt was pointed to one of those silly conspiracy theory videos that pop up on YouTube all the time. They’re completely harmless and only serve to gather comments from the people who think wearing tin foil hats is fashionable. What’s interesting is that the video was taken down with a copyright claim from not only NBC, but the Department of Homeland Security.

    The video in question is available elsewhere and there is nothing in the video that would violate the copyright of CBS or the DHS. The clip is taken from Sky News, a subsidiary of Sky Broadcasting. The only group besides Sky who could take offense would be News Corp who owns a rather large stake in the company. The video also uses the Imperial March from Star Wars, which is owned by LucasFilm.

    As you can see, nothing adds up whatsoever. CBS has no stake in this video being proliferated around the Internet, and the bad conspiracy theories that permeate the video should not be any threat whatsoever to the nation that DHS has to issue a takedown.

    The folks at TechDirt attempted to contact CBS and the DHS on the matter, but were either issued a “no comment” or outright ignored. It’s interesting to see this kind of reaction to a video that’s so blatantly harmless.

    Now that the video and its account have been taken down, the crazy conspiracy theorists are going to take this as a sign that that Obama administration is trying to cover up evidence. The same evidence that’s available on about 85,000 other videos that deal with the conspiracy of a New World Order led by the Illuminati and Barack Obama.

    The very idea that the DHS would get into the business of censoring videos on YouTube is absolutely insane. They have no copyright to defend and would only want to block a YouTube video if it featured some kind of threat to the security of the United States. The insane gibberish of a conspiracy theorist is fully protected free speech, even if it makes you question the sanity of the person saying it.

    I’m going to go with TechDirt on this one though. It’s still a little disturbing that the U.S. government is now issuing takedown requests of YouTube videos. Does that mean that the Obama administration or any other entity can now take down any video that they disagree with? Oh wait, they already have.

  • YouTube Reveals Your Film Festival Finalists

    The results are in for the YouTube-sponsored Your Film Festival. Two American and two Australian filmmakers, along with others from six other countries have won a trip to the Venice Film Festival for a chance to win $500,000 and the priceless tutelage of some Hollywood elite.

    March 31st was the deadline for submissions to the contest. When YouTube announced Your Film Festival, they said that is was a free-entry, free-form contest. That meant that submission from filmmakers could take one of any formats – short film, web-series episode, TV pilot – whatever. Voting took place in June, and the list of 50 finalists was cut to 10. Those ten will now compete for the grand prize in Venice.

    According to the YouTube blog, over 3 million people voted for the Your Film Festival finalists, and they selected these ten entries:

    • 88:88, Joey Ciccoline & Sean Wilson (USA)
    • Bat Eyes, Damien Power (Australia)
    • Cine Rincao, Fernando Grostein Andrade & Fernanda Fernandes (Brazil)
    • The Drought, Kevin Slack (USA)
    • El General, Diego Pino Zamora (Bolivia)
    • The Guilt, David Victori Blaya (Spain)
    • North Atlantic, Bernardo Nascimento (United Kingdom)
    • Super.Full., Niam Itani (Lebanon)
    • Scruples, Adrian Powers (Australia)
    • This Time, Ramy EL-Gabry (Egypt)

    These finalists’ trip to Venice will include a pitch to director Ridley Scott, and the panel of judges will include actor Michael Fassbender. The grand prize winner will not only receive half a million dollars for future projects, but will get to work on that new project with Fassbender and Scott.

    You can check out the finalists here. All of the films are under 15 minutes.

  • Lollapalooza: Google Gives Away 20 Free Songs From Performers

    Google is giving away 20 free songs from performers appearing at Lollapalooza.

    If you want free music from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neon Indian, Sigur Rós, Dum Dum Girls, Afghan Whigs, or others, today’s your lucky day. Here’s the full list of available tracks from Google Play:

    Free music from Google

    “This year, the Chicago lineup features at least a few names from the festival’s heyday years—most notably enduring funk-rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers—but in keeping with the fest’s original spirit, Lollapalooza 2012 largely celebrates the sounds of right now: M83’s epic synth rock and tUnE-yArDs’ neo-tribal ruckus, Bassnectar and SBTRKT’s differing takes on dubstep, The Tallest Man on Earth’s Swedish-accented alt-country, Michael Kiwanuka’s arresting folk blues and Sigur Ros’ aching instrumental rock,” says Google Play’s Eric Grandy. “In between, the playlist will give you plenty of chill electropop (Washed Out, Neon Indian), indie rock (Twin Shadow, Bear in Heaven) and even some retro soul (Aloe Blacc).”

    Google is also streaming Lollapalooza live on YouTube:

    The event takes place August 3-5.

  • New Bill Nye The Science Guy Show Coming To YouTube

    When asked during a reddit AMA session three days ago whether or not he would consider doing new episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy, Bill Nye said

    Yes, yes. But, it would have to be with the right producers, and it would have to be a less unfavorable contract. I put my heart and soul into that thing; everybody on the crew did. It was a unique time in TV history. It was exciting to be part of it. Let’s change the world.

    A redditor specifically asked him if he would consider doing it on YouTube or independently on the internet, to which Nye replied “Stay tuned [winky face].”

    Now, we learn that Bill Nye is bringing a new show to Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist YouTube channel,

    “I’m proud to announce you guys, that Bill Nye will be coming to the Nerdist channel on YouTube,” announced Hardwick on his Nerdist podcast.

    The announcement was also reiterated in the info line of this video, posted today. Check out how Bill Nye ties a bowtie:

    When Bill Nye told reddit to “Stay Tuned,” were not sure that he meant for this announcement. But it is a new Bill Nye show coming to YouTube. The format of which, we can only hope, resembles his classic TV show.

    [via reddit]

  • YouTube Reminds Us That There Are Over 4 Million Creative Commons Videos At Our Disposal

    A little over a year ago, YouTube launched Creative Commons on YouTube, and officially allowed uploaders to ad a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) to their videos. At the launch, the CC library consisted of just over 10,000 videos from organizations like C-SPAN, PublicResource, and Al Jazeera.

    Today, YouTube tells us that there are now 4 million Creative Commons videos in their library, which means that YouTube is the number one place to go on the web to find video to “reuse, remix, and reimagine.”

    From the YouTube blog:

    Since the Creative Commons video library launch on YouTube a year ago, you’ve added more than 40 years’ worth of video to the mix. Anyone, anywhere can edit, build on and republish the library’s videos for free thanks to the Creative Commons Attribution license, otherwise known as CC BY.

    Do you need a professional opening for your San Francisco vacation video? Perhaps some gorgeous footage of the moon for your science project? How about a squirrel eating a walnut to accompany your hot new dubstep track? All of this and more is available to inspire and add to your unique creation. Thanks to CC BY, it’s easy to borrow footage from other people’s videos and insert it into your own, because the license grants you the specific permissions to do so as long as you give credit to the original creator.

    To make your video available to the Creative Commons, it’s as simple as clicking this option when uploading:

    And starting today, you can switch over your default to CC BY, meaning that all of your future uploads will appear in the Creative Commons library.

  • Online Petition To Allow YouTube to MP3 Conversion Tops 1 Million Signatures

    An online petition demanding YouTube to allow access for third party recording tools has topped 1.1 million signatures, and shows no signs of stopping.

    The petition, created by 21-year-old Philip Matesanz, asks Google to “break their silence and participate in an open and fair discussion” regarding the practice of translating YouTube videos into MP3 files.

    Matesanz is the creator of one of the most popular third-party recording sites, YouTube-MP3.org. Last month, Google targeted the site by threatening Matesanz with a lawsuit unless he voluntarily took down his conversion site.

    To be perfectly clear what we’re talking about here, this is exactly what YouTube-MP3.org does:

    YouTube-mp3.org is the easiest online service for converting videos to mp3. You do not need an account, the only thing you need is a YouTube URL. We will start to convert the audiotrack of your videofile to mp3 as soon as you have submitted it and you will be able to download it.

    A couple of weeks after the threat, Matesanz created the petition on Change.org. Within three days, it already has over 180,000 signatures. Here’s some of it:

    For decades people were allowed to take a private copy of a public broadcast. You could record the radio program with a cassette recorder or make a copy of your favorite movie by using a video recorder. All these techniques have been opposed heavily in its early years by the big media companies who didn’t want the public to have such technology. They did describe such technology as criminal and as a threat to their business e.g. the 1980s campaign Home Taping Is Killing Music.

    Several years later history is about to repeat: Google has teamed up with the RIAA to make the same claims against all sorts of online recording tools for their 21th century broadcasting service: YouTube (“Broadcast yourself”). Google is taking action against nearly every service that enables its users to create a private copy of a public YouTube broadcast while the RIAA is threatening news media like CNet for promoting such a software.

    Now, after only existing for a few weeks, the petition has over 1.1 million signatures, with only about 400,000 needed to reach the next petition level.

    “In the past, people have been able to record TV shows and CDs using home recording equipment,” Matesanz said. “Now, YouTube wants to block users doing the same from its site. I launched this petition to make the point that changing technology should not affect peoples’ rights as consumers.”

    “I have been amazed at the response to my petition but surprised that the company has not responded. I would very much like to sit down with them and discuss this issue.”

    As of right now, Matesanz’s site is up and running smoothly.

  • YouTube Turns An Eye To Mecca, Debuts New Ramadan Channel

    Today begins the holy month of Ramadan, Islam’s period of fasting, prayer, and charity. For the next 30 days, millions of Muslims around the word will participate in sawm, zakat & sadaqah, tarawih, and salah. And this year, YouTube wants to make the experience a little more digital.

    For the entire month, YouTube has devoted a channel to streaming the Mecca prayers live. For Muslims who cannot make the pilgrimage, they can view the holy city from the comfort of their own home.

    YouTube has also devoted a new channel to showing the special television programming created for Ramadan. They say that over time, the channel will house over 50 shows:

    Ramadan is about more than just prayer; it is also a special moment to gather with friends and family. Muslims gather to watch special television shows produced for the holiday and shown only during Ramadan. Often the shows overlap in scheduling. This year, for the first time, YouTube is enabling people to watch their favorite shows anytime, anywhere. A new YouTube Ramadan channel lets viewers see more than 50 premium Ramadan shows the same day they air. In the clip below, famed Syrian actor Jamal Suliman appears in a drama:

    On top of this, Google+ will host 30 days of Hangouts featuring actors, poets, chefs, and more.

  • YouTube Rewards Creators With Gold Play Button

    YouTube Rewards Creators With Gold Play Button

    You can argue all you want over the relevancy of the Oscars, it’s still pretty cool to brag about getting one. The golden statue will always be a reminder that you have the talent to be one of the best. Thankfully, YouTube is making it easier for creators to get recognized with their own golden trophy.

    YouTube announced today that every YouTube Partner whose channel amasses over one million subscribers will get a gold-plated play button to hang wherever they wish. That’s not all as those creators will also get a $500 gift card to purchase more video equipment alongside a limited edition camera case.

    To make the feat of getting one million subscribers even more impressive, only 80 or so channels have reached that point so far. Out of those 80 channels, there are over 500 million subscriptions and 251 billion views.

    So who won one of the coveted gold-plated play buttons? Some of my, and apparently your, favorite channels like Epic Meal Time and Mondo Media. It’s good to see that YouTube is beginning to honor such artistic endeavors.

    What if you haven’t reached a million subscriptions yet? What if you only have, say, 100,000 subscriptions? YouTube has something for you as well. Over 1,400 channels will receive the $500 gift card and a new camera case to help them reach one million subscribers.

    YouTube will be doing this on a continual basis as well so start getting those subscribers. Maybe one day the gold-plated play button will become the solid gold play button and be offered at the YouTube equivalent of the Oscars. We can only dream.

  • YouTube Now Blurs Faces For Maximum Anonymity

    If you want to upload a video to YouTube, but you fear what may happen if anyone identifies its subjects, things just got a bit easier.

    Today, YouTube announced that they’ve added face blurring to their set of video enhancements.

    From the YouTube blog:

    Blurring faces on YouTube is simple. Once you’ve chosen the video that you’d like to edit within our Video Enhancements tool, go to Additional Features and click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Before you publish, you will see a preview of what your video will look like with faces blurred. When you save the changes to your video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then be given the option to delete the original video.

    YouTube makes a point to say that this in a new feature that utilizes emerging technology, so you may encounter situations where not all the faces in your video are blurred out. On the tool itself, YouTube reminds users that if this happens, you may want to keep your video private.

    We’ve known that YouTube was working on this technology for a while, at the behest of various human rights groups. Now, it’s a reality.

    YouTube face blur

  • Hit That Bully In The Mouth: 7 Instances Of People Taking Their Momma’s Advice

    There are some that would never condone fighting – under any circumstances. And for the most part, I’d say that the “turn the other cheek” philosophy is the best course of action in most situations.

    But I’m sure that some of your mothers (or fathers) told you once that the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them.

    And if YouTube has given us anything better than cat videos, it has to be the “bully gets what they deserve” video. They’re everywhere, and here are seven of the best.

    [NSFW, for violence and language]

    Just a few days old, this one may turn out to be one of the more controversial bully videos on the web. That’s because the bully happens to be a girl:

    This old guy obviously has enough of this young bugger:

    We’ve got to take the uploader’s word on this one, as the video starts after the alleged bullying. But according to him, the little guy took crap for about 30 minutes before deciding it was enough:

    Those two punks probably shouldn’t have messed with this guy, who clearly has some experience in the ring:

    This one is more sad than anything. It appears that the younger guy just won’t leave the Vietnam vet alone, and he pays for it in blood:

    Although this bully didn’t choose it, someone his own size decided to mess with him:

    Finally, the king of all bullying videos on the internet. Casey decides he’s not going to take it anymore:

  • Confirmed: Chatting With Yourself At Age 12 Would Be Fairly Annoying

    In what must be the coolest version of a time capsule to hit the interwebs in quite some time, one actor and filmmaker has completed an interview with himself that he begun back in 1992, when he was 12 years old.

    Twenty years ago, Jeremiah McDonald, aka weepingprophet on YouTube, recorded himself talking to his future self. Now, he has popped in the old VHS and made this awesome video that pits man against boy for a pretty trippy conversation.

    McDonald is facing a little bit of skepticism on YouTube, as more than one person has asked about the child actor that portrays him in the video. McDonald stands by the fact that the kid is in fact a naive, 12-year-old version of himself.

    Check it out below:

    This gives me and idea. I’m not exactly sure what I would say to myself at age 50, though. I’m pretty sure that me in twenty-four years would hate the current me. Maybe that’s how we all should strive to live our lives. Strive to make sure future you won’t hate current you and vice versa. It may help to simply imagine the conversation the two of you would have, if it ever came to that.

  • These Five YouTube And Google TV Videos May Help You Win A Living Room Audience

    Google has posted many sessions from Google I/O, its annual developers conference held last week. I’ve pulled out a few that may help you broaden your audience, as far as attracting people watching their televisions, whether that be for your app or for your videos.

    This one provides tips for building, programming and promoting a YouTube channel:

    This one is for app developers developing for Android smartphones, tablets or Google TV, who want to incorporate high quality Youtube video playback:

    This one is all about getting your content on Google TV:

    This one is about bringing your app to the big screen:

    Here are some interviews from the Google TV Sandbox:

  • Google Trims the Fat Off of Products; Google Mini, Google Video, Symbian Get Chucked

    If Google was some digitized version of Wipeout!, inevitably some of the products won’t get to move on and compete in the next round. It’s a fact of life: there has to be losers. For at least a few of those products, the judge’s scores have been added and today Google will be sending them home with a sad collection of consolation prizes.

    Actually, they don’t even get that much; Google’s just pulling the plugs on these misfit products and sending them to the big Google server in the sky. Some of these products are just redundancies of more popular products while others simply never caught on with users.

    The first product to go meet the butcher is Google Talk Chatback. Since Google purchased Meebo, it’s turning off Chatback and encouraging people to migrate over to the Meebo bar if they want to provided some kind of embedded chat among visitors.

    Although Google didn’t specify a date, it will “soon” be retiring the Symbian Search App. There’s no replacement for this one, unless you want to be imaginative and consider google.com as an alternative.

    Later this month on July 31, Google will be closing down Google Mini. If you’re going to miss this service, Google recommends trying out Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search for your enterprise needs.

    Google Video, which hasn’t been accepting uploads since May 2009, will finally be absorbed into YouTube. All of the hosted content on Google Video will be moved to YouTube and automatically marked as private videos on August 20. However, if you’ve still got content on Google Video, you can manually move your videos to YouTube before that date. Once your videos are moved, you’ll be able to access them via YouTube Video Manager.

    Finally, iGoogle, Google’s attempt at allowing users to create a personal homepage replete with widgets and other quick access to Google apps, will be climbing the scaffold… eventually. For some reason, Google is waiting until November 1, 2013 – that’s not even this November! – to close down iGoogle. The first part of this closure, though, is that Google will no longer accept theme submissions and new gadgets past July 31, 2012, so if you want to hurry up and develop some new product for a web service that’s admittedly on life support, you better get right to it. In the meantime, developers will still be able to update existing gadgets after this month.

    Meanwhile, the rest of Google’s quadzillion products will remain in service.

    [Via Google’s Official Blog.]