Microsoft YouTube App Strips Ads; Adds Download 381
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft appears to be sticking a finger in Google's eye with the launch of its new YouTube app for Windows Phone. The app, ReadWrite has confirmed, strips out YouTube ads when it plays back videos and allows users to easily download video by way of a prominent 'download' button."
Google will block it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google will block it (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, without looking into the matter, it sounds like a TOS issue here. Its either against the terms of service or not.
I've been watching YouTube videos forever as an unregistered visitor and never seen a TOS. And seriously, you can put anything you friggin want on your website about TOS for casual visitors or web browsers, nobody gives a crap. And if you try to file legal action based on your foolish TOS you'll be laughed out of court within 10.5 nonseconds.
Soooo Xbox Live? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sooo can I get xbox live with ADs stripped out of also Microsoft? Seeing as I pay for the service!
Re:Going to hurt videos available at some point (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be mean to you personally, but we don't fucking care. Just like we don't fucking care that ABC doesn't like us recording shows on our DVRs and watching them later without having to suffer through the horrible, loud, insulting-to-the-intelligence ads. We don't care that Sony and BMG want us to buy entire CDs of music, rather than download songs, or worse yet, find other music to listen to.
So, if your profession is making videos, and your income is based on ads played during those videos on a communal website, you may want to think of a better revenue stream. This one isn't going to last, whether Microsoft can pull this off or not.
Re:Soooo Xbox Live? (Score:5, Interesting)
Theoretically...
There are ways to blackhole ad servers at the router, if you use DDWRT or openWRT, assming MS hasn't deeply rolled the ad server In with the live server.
This means that you could inject alternatives to adverts and movie files, based on the structure of the query, and the remote IP. Eg, you could put a "no" sign around a $, in place of static image ads, and a "static screen loop" in place of streaming video ads. Unless the MS dash does some kind of data hash checking, it would display the downloaded content instead of the intended adverts.
(Makes you wonder if you could force MS xboxes to display trojanized swf files, or trojanized EMF or TIFF files, for clandestine execution jumping fun....)
I haven't tested this, and it is clearly against MS's ToS, (which as worded, says you cant even have wireshark running at the same time your xbox is turned on, let alone meddle with the replies the box gets.)
Danger if MS does a super dick move, like double verify image checksums of adverts the console downloads, and if "known surrogates/malware" are detected, ban the console though.
Re:Then stop breaking the terms of service. (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. This is settled case law, beginning with the VCR. What comes to your device can be "time-shifted", meaning you are free to save ANYTHING which legally comes to your device, and play it back later. What used to be called "taping" is now, these days, known as "downloading" and the law is crystal clear about the legality of these actions.
Re:Then stop breaking the terms of service. (Score:4, Interesting)
What exactly is being stolen from Google? Much of the content on YouTube isn't owned by Google or even licensed to Google, yet Google runs ads before content that often gets uploaders flagged for copyright infringement (old music videos for example). Google makes money off the properties of others.
Google makes money by facilitating access to property that youtube users want the public access. Youtube is a facilitator, Google earns money off the leechers that youtube user's content attracts and in return youtube users get to publish stuff for free to a much larger audience than they could otherwise easily attract without without paying up significant amounts of money. That's what scientists call a mutualistic relationship [wikipedia.org] since both participants benefit, not a parasitic one as you are rather snidely implying. Google is not a charitable organization, Youtube has massive overheads, Google is under no obligation to operate Youtube at a loss as a public service for your benefit. If they are pissed off at Microsoft showing Youtube content without ads and providing a download button they can block all Windows Mobile OS users. This raises some interesting questions though because Firefox, for example, has several Youtube download plugins and a whole slew of adblocker plugins available. Will Google also block Firefox users? I installed Ghostery on my Safari browser and I could install an adblocker if I wanted to. Will Google block all Mac and iOS users as well?
Re:Wrong measure (Score:2, Interesting)
So far it seems that they do have a better marketting department. At least for large chunks of audience that don't know any better.
FTFY
Apple doesn't bother making a better product, they never really have. They have brilliant marketting though such that people who don't know better flock to the thing in droves because it's an iphone. They know what an iphone is, and equate it with smart phone. never mind that the competing phones do more, do it better, and do it at a lower price. The iphone is consistently a year or more behind the major Android players in features, the usability and interface really improved since the first iphone launched (and it badly needs to) and yet they manage to get people to line up every year to buy the new iphone, even when there's no real change from the last one.
There is one thing Apple is absolutely amazing at, and it has nothing to do with physical devices or software. It's all about the hype, and they sure know how to do that well.