Where's Germany?

So, YouTube is going international with sites in nine different major markets. However, the one surprising omission is Germany.

While Germany has Sevenload.com, this is still a huge digital market and a quick search shows plenty of German content already on YouTube. What will the locals make of the apparent snub? Maybe the German reaction to alleged Flickr censorship and the legal issues at the core played a factor in the delay...

Time to update the blogger templates

This blog has had the same template for a couple of years now, after I decided to take it out of the pre-2000 design phase and bring it up-to-date. As ever, internet design moves fast and it's already looking dated.

So, I decided to check out the available blogger templates having expectations of at least some of the open-source creativity you get with Wordpress. However, the templates were lacking in number and excitement so I'll stick with this for now.

Time to create a few more?

It's harder than you think

Google has responded in the debate about video fingerprinting as a way of controlling the use of copyrighted content on YouTube. Both Microsoft's Soapbox and MySpace video already have video fingerprinting in place, so you can understand many content owner's frustration about the delay.

However, Google does make some interesting points about the difficulties in identifying copyrighted content when sometimes copyrighted content may be legitimately posted independent of Google's content deals. As it says, porn or violence are reasonably clear to all (but still a judgement call) whereas users may not know if a piece of copyrighted content is legal or not.

Whatever the merits of the arguments, Google needs to implement their technology sooner rather than later to appease the concerns of many content owners.

Going public about privacy

As you would expect from their communications policy, Google are using their blog on a corporate level to respond to the privacy storm caused by the controversial report from Privacy International, while Googler Matt Cutts responds on a personal level in his 'official' blog.

Their response and those of many of the blogosphere have successfully generated debate about the report and have put their side of the story across. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the report, it has put privacy at the centre of debate on the internet and that can only be viewed as a positive.

Google raising the stakes

There have been a significant number of Google offerings of late as they extend this offering into mashups, desktop and extend the functionality of the mapping tool:

- Google Gears: allowing you to read your Google Reader RSS feeds offline with the technology open to external sites and services
- Purchase of Feedburner: feed distribution and management tools
- Google Mashup Editor: rival to Yahoo Pipes
- Google Mapplets: embed mini applications within Google Maps
- Purchase of Panoramio: geo-located photo sharing

All part of the battle for acquisitions and innovation between the big three of Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.

Blogger custom domains

About time too. Blogger.com now lets you buy your own domain, point it at the Google Blogger servers and they will take care of the hosting. So, for those of us that like to have our own domain for SEO, vanity or other reasons rather than the default 'dot blogspot', we can do so for the price of a domain.

May be a little late to capture those lost to Wordpress and the like, but another important step in making Blogger.com a competitive service again for medium to advanced users.

Just one of those days commuting

London transport take a bow. Keen to get into work early after a week of travel disruptions, I decided to take no chances and take an earlier train. However, London transport was having none of it confounding me at every turn:

1) Train: not only was it late, but because of earlier delays my usual cherished seat was denied me forcing me to endure the sweaty armpits of fellow commuters before the usual tube watershed.

2) Victoria station: I managed to fight my way down to the Victoria line platform, only for a defective train at Warren Street to bring the whole line to a standstill. Not being able to even get near to the stationary tube train, I headed out to find a bus, as they closed the tube on my exit.

3) Bus: with the mass of commuters seeking alternative transport, the only bus I was able to squeeze myself onto was taking the long route up to the central line. After getting stuck in traffic I decided to jump off early and head off on foot from Green Park to Bond Street.

4) On foot: It started to rain. Sigh.

5) Tube: for some insane reason, escalator works meant I couldn't access Bond Street station.

6) On foot: more sightseeing as I powered my way down Oxford Street to Marble Arch.

7) Tube: fighting my way through the mass of people, I pushed my way through as the doors closed. Tucked amid the mass of commuters I failed to spot my central line train was going the wrong way. Doh. An about turn and finally I was on the right track.

9) Work: I finally made it to work 15 minutes late having set off 45 minutes early.

10) In future: Make plans to work from home. Aren't these things supposed to happen on a Monday? Oh, they did.

Rant over!

Computer says no

Maybe because I haven't updated the blog for a couple of months while working on other blogging projects, but it looks like Technorati is starting to write Netcoms dot com out of the blogosphere history.

Despite links from several different blogs, it now states that this blog has no inbound links from other blogs, nor is it recording my blogroll's links to other blogs.

No fair. So, in the interests of experimentation, I'll update the blog with this post and see if Technorati finds it in its heart to reinstate this venerable veteran of several years and over a hundred posts back into the blogosphere fold.

Update: Some of that link love has been restored it seems, thanks to an update and a ping - now it says that 5 blogs link here, but doesn't list them. Make your mind up!

Stormhoek in a teacup?

There I was wandering around Sainsbury's looking for a bottle of white to complement my cod in cabbage and beer (much nicer than it sounds, I assure you) when a blue topped bottle caught my eye.

After all the hype in the blogosphere about those winemakers from Stormhoek and their blog, there was a distinctive bottle of Sauvignon Blanc actually in the real world, complete with a cartoon from Gaping Void. What's more it was reduced to under a fiver, so it could satisfy my wallet and my curiousity.

I opened the bottle and took a sniff inside. Fruity, fresh with aromas of lemon and gooseberry.

A swirl around the mouth. Hmm. Yes, it did have an original taste, but did it pass muster? Not really. To be honest, I prefer my wines with more depth of flavour and this one, while nice enough, was just too youthful, even for Sauvignon Blanc.

So after all the hype, it was a little disappointing. Did exactly what it said on the 'tin', but just not to my taste.

Maybe I'll try some of the other varieties, next time I'm walking the aisles.

Sir Cliff Richard 1 Gordon Ramsey 1

It was amusing to see the boost to traffic that my Sir Cliff Richard does a Ratner piece generated. Clearly the housewives favourite is a serious player on the internet, as he is in the flesh at his concerts with his frighteningly devoted fans.

As the pre-publicity intended, I did actually watch Sir Cliff's appearance on the 'F-Word' and unsurprisingly it failed to live up to the hype. While he might have been trying to make a valid point about how fake celebrity wines are, in the end I found it a rather crude attempt at humiliation as Ramsey tried to coax a swearword out of the singer-cum-viticulturist.

Sir Cliff kept his cool at least while on camera, but the sensible riposte would have been to say 'well, the wine may not be the best, but it's such a perfect match for your food'.

Sir Cliff Richard does a Ratner

Amusing story from the Daily Mail also picked up by wine bloggers Stormhoek about the famously mild-mannered British Knight Sir Cliff Richard losing his cool with foul mouthed chef Gordon Ramsey on the F-Word.

Ever one to humiliate wherever possible, Ramsey invited Sir Cliff to do a blind tasting for the show. What he didn't tell him was that he'd be tasting his own wine Vida Nova. Oh dear. It wasn't exactly a fair fight with Ramsey first giving him a £400 bottle to sample.

Then it was over to Sir Cliff to make a memorable gaffe, according to Ramsey: "That's rubbish. I wouldn't pay for that, it's tainted, it's insipid. It tastes like vinaigrette. I'd never buy that."

Ouch. On revealing his duplicity, Ramsey claims Sir Cliff told him 'Young man, go f*** yourself'. While many would concur with that view, the whole episode is highly embarrassing for Sir Cliff.

Unsurprisingly, Ramsey is now milking the publicity with one of his traditionally understated quotes, tailor-made to fill those column inches: "Sirs can't swear like that. It was extraordinary. That was his wine from Portugal. We are now using it for vinaigrette at Claridge's."

(Yes, I'm not entirely sure what it has to do with internet communications either, but just watch this story amplify over the blogosphere and turn up on YouTube.)