Breaking: YouTube Clicks Into Retail

What peer pressure has to do with revolutionizing social media monetization.

THIS JUST IN

YouTube just announced its first move into retail land: click-to-buy links in music videos. Like most Google initiatives, the move is informed by pure organic consumer demand — Google folks noticed that the comment area below vides is fertile ground for consumer discussion of the music used in a video, so they jumped on the opportunity with an e-commerce platform that provides the answer in a direct click-to-buy format.

Currently available to U.S. users only, the platform links to iTunes and Amazon downloads from the EMI Music catalog, but is said to eventually expand into other media like TV, film and print.

We, of course, are not surprised — if it were any other company, Google would be doing this mainly as a reaction to the monetize-YouTube-already peer pressure, but because it’s Google, we know that no action is ever a reaction. There are greater forces at play, and we’re here to tug at their toys.

>>> More at the Official Google Blog

Image Search Redefined

How to hunt down interestingness by its hexadecimal color.

It’s been a while since we’ve stumbled across something along the lines of PicLens, retrievr and the Flickr Related Tag Browser.

Today, we bring you another inspired algorithm that revolutionizes the image search experience.

The Multicolr Search Lab, offers color-based search, spitting out images in up to 10 colors you’ve specified. Out of the equally inspired Idée Labs, a self-proclaimed “technology playground for visual search,” Multicolr utilizes the proprietary Piximilar visual similarity search technology that scours large collections of images without using keywords or metadata.

The Multicolr Search Lab is currently available for Flickr and Alamy Stock Photography. The Flickr version extracts the colors from over 10 million of Flickr’s most interesting Creative Commons images. The notion of “interesting” is actually one of Flickr’s own cool algorithms that assesses an image’s “interestingness” based on various meta elements like where the clickthroughs are coming from, who comments on it and when, who marks it as a favorite, its tags and more.

Because these factors are in constant flux, so is the “interestingness” of any given image — something meant to inspire more exploration and discovery inside Flickr.

And while our 8th-grade English Lit teacher used to say that “interesting is what you call an ugly baby,” we have to admit this brand of interestingness falls squarely on the baby pagent side.

Just Press Rewind

What Beethoven, your high school sweetheart and a boombox have in common.

Every once in a while, we like to glance back into the past. And if what we see makes us raise a knowing eyebrow, let out a bittersweet sigh, or laugh a little — all the better. Today is one of those days, so warm up your eyebrows, take a few deep breaths, and dig out your funny bone.

BEETHOVEN FIGHT SCENE

Beethoven — not exactly known for making funny. Black-and-white silent film — could go either way on the humor scale. So who would’ve thought that combining the two would cause supreme hilarity to ensue, thanks to the immaculate comedic timing of the unexpected audio/video sync?

Ah, simple genius. Can’t beat that.

via VSL

CASSETTE FROM MY EX

Speaking of musical blasts from the past, the formative years of our relationship with music can easily be traced back to those precious mixtapes from high school sweethearts and college loves. Which, sadly, are getting washed away by the flood of 1′s and 0′s that is the digital age we live in.

Luckily, FOUND Magazine co-founder Jason Bitner and his team of like-minded creative nostalgics (including music producer Damon Locks and SMITH Magazine founding editor Larry Smith) have brought us Cassette From My Ex: a project that brings so many of those musical gems, and the stories behind them, to light — to our delight.

You’ll find hundreds of digitized Side A’s and Side B’s, oozing that unmistakable butterflies-in-the-stomachness of first crushes and young love. And you’ll get to read the heartfelt recollections of the relationships they were the soundtrack of.

We love the concept almost as much as we loved Danni in the 8th grade. Besides, it’s been a while since we saw Sinead O’Connor and Dire Straits sharing anything other than the glove compartment of our parents’ Oldsmobile.

LASONIC BOOMBOX

But before we get too boggled down with reminiscence — there’s no reason why you can’t relish the past and reconcile it with the present. And you can do it for under $200.

We’re talking about what must positively be the awesomest iPod dock in existence: the Lasonic Boombox. When you’re done gushing over the overwhelming retro-coolness of the gadget, let’s focus on the specs: this baby has separate bass and treble controls, a solid AM/FM tuner, a beastly speaker system, an alarm function that lets you wake up to your favorite blast-from-the-past Barry White, and a ton more nifty stuff that almost makes that Michael Jackson playlist of yours cool again.

via Thrillist