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YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button (Seriously)
teh31337one writes "YouTube always has had a way with pranks. Some time in the last hour, the world's largest video portal activated a new button on some videos that looks like a tiny soccer ball. Clicking it will activate an endless, incredibly annoying sound that sounds vaguely like a swarm of insects. Or, for anyone who has been watching the World Cup, like the dreaded vuvuzela — an instrument commonly played in South Africa at football (soccer) games. South Africa is, of course, the host country for this year's World Cup, and fans watching the games have been subjected to the vuvuzela's mindless drone for hours on end. The noise is so annoying that television networks have taken measures to filter it out, and guides have popped up showing viewers how to block it from their TV sets and computers. I'm not seeing the button show up on all videos, but it is definitely appearing on some clips that aren't soccer-related."
...on ANY website?
Dreaded? Incredibly annoying? Come one, it's just a trumpet. I get the feeling that after all the prophets of doom predicted the stadiums wouldn't be finished and the fans would be murdered by criminals, they have nothing left to complain about except the little trumpets.
Oh come on, April Fools Day' is the Internet at its most amusing just for stuff like this. You know it's only a temporary change.
Well you've got to mimic the Facebook, otherwise how will you attract all those cool, intelligent people who use social networking sites to your services?
Being that I'm from the US, I didn't need yet another reason to hate soccer... but, thanks Youtube for giving me another one!
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Soccer is what the rest of the world follows for sports as they don't have access to baseball or football or basketball or hockey.
Some americans do play soccer, mostly because mothers consider it to be more harmless then a sport where you hit others with a baseball and spit on your balls, gay men jump each other, or the kid ain't black or japanese or the mother is against open warfare on ice. (European impression of US sports).
The vuuzela is something soccer fans blow because they are bored out of their mind and hate their neighbour but rioting is forbidden. Average EU soccer fan does hockey on the stands.
As an EU citizen who has been to both EU and US sports events, don't bother Americans. Your sports might be impossible to comprehend for non-natives but the atmosphere is a thousand times better.
For the EU soccer fans, attent a US sports event once and make it clear you are a foreinger, the Americans will welcome the newbie and show you everything, just remmeber that they like to play pranks and so will offer you a drink of cooled piss and pretend it is beer. Just smile politely and drop it somewhere. It is all part of the experience.
Oh yeah BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Far more annoying than either of these are the fucked-up popup "slide window" ads that obscure the bottom 1/3 of every fucking video on Youtube these days.
I've taken to just clicking the Download Helper button and downloading whatever video to my desktop, so I don't have to see those stupid annoying ads and can actually see the video I was looking for.
This is my new favourite internet meBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttTTTTTT.
sounds like some part of a woman's anatomy
vuvuzela button: sounds like some part of a woman's anatomy i'm not aware of, but should be aware of
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just don't click it. It's not like it's labelled 'Do Not Click'.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Do not want!
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The one legacy the vuvuzela will have after the World Cup is the future exclusion of South Africa from ever again hosting any international sporting event.
Yes, how many products did you buy because of YouTube ads last year? Was it enough? Meh.
Your comment seems very similar to "every download is a lost sale", because, to me, at least, it's pretty clear that "Moryath" isn't going to buy anything advertised in that irritating way --- in fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if he might actually consider boycotting products pushed by "those stupid annoying ads". In that case, his avoiding the ads is doing the advertisers a favor.
And you know what? I even think he's smart enough, in the case where he thought that his behavior was actually damaging Google (and it's not clear that it even is, because I'm certain that Google counts his download as a "view", and I'm not certain that Google doesn't charge advertisers based on the popularity of the clips they are supposed to pop up on, even if they don't get clicked), to move to a different tool which would block the ads while giving Google their share of payback from the advertisers.
Adblock Plus takes care of these, haven't seen one ever on my desktop/laptops.
Vuvuzela Concerto in B Flat.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Your assumption regarding the rating system of youtube is wrong. The like/dislike system was adopted as a consequence of the rating habits of youtube users not in an attempt to mimic facebook. The majority of the videos on youtube were either 1* or 5* with mostly nothing in between.
The like/dislike mechanism is an evolution of a system that is trying to adapt itself to its user base.
You can read more about this on the official youtube blog - http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html
Cheers.
Football is a game where you move the ball with your feet, not with your hands.
>Of course you could just be an ignorant British ethnocentrist who doesn't realize that you're about the only ones calling it by that exact word.
The name is not only used in English (the language of England) but also in German (Fussbal), French (football), Spanish (fútbol), Portuguese (futebol), ...
>most of the English speaking world call it soccer
According to wikipedia, you are wrong.
>so fuck off
so grow up
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
Here in America, we Americans don't put apostrophes in "American's" unless it's possessive. i.e. "Scientific American's in-depth article on electronic Vuvezeula noise filtering". It's possible apostrophe rules are different where you live, such as England or South Africa, but I doubt it :)
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Vuvuzela's are South African culture, if you dont like it, dont what any of the games, we couldnt care less what you did.
No, the vuvuzela is not part of South African culture. It's a freaking Mexican horn, and wasn't even available in South Africa until 2001, when some crappy plastic company started churning the god-awful things out down there.
It's no more part of their culture than OS X is.
If the biggest complaint to come out of the first world cup in Africa are the cheap noisemakers, I'd call that a win. Sure, your typical South African may be upset that people are complaining about the horns, but the organizing committee has to be thrilled that people are not complaining about violence, a lack of organization, or any of the other things people were worried about when South Africa was announced as the host.
Those triompet in their form at footbal match are only commercialized recently. The traditional one don't even have that form or noise.
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Oh, for once in your dreary, lonely life, just laugh and appreciate harmless spontaneity, you hopelessly miserable, cynical person.
No, I'm not a "leecher."
On the other hand, I came to see the video. If they want to run a 5-10 second bit before the video plays, like many other video sites do, I have absolutely no problem with that. They need their advert money, fine. If they want to put ads down the right side, as long as they're not neon flashing crap or those annoying expanding "a truck runs all across your screen covering up the article you came to read" flash ad crap, fine.
Where I get annoyed is that the ads are actually BLOCKING MY VIEW OF THE VIDEO. Many times, it's blocking my view of a foreign news clip or something else that has subtitles (like Auto-tune The News), which means the subtitles themselves are getting blocked.
Google/Youtube needs to learn: STOP FUCKING COVERING UP THE VIDEO. It's damn annoying and no, it does NOT make me more likely to buy the advertised product. Far from it, I'll get even more pissed off if I mis-click the tiny-ass little "x" button to get the fucking thing to go away, and then either have a new page popup happen, or have my browser wander away from the video entirely.
Your comment seems very similar to "every download is a lost sale", because, to me, at least, it's pretty clear that "Moryath" isn't going to buy anything advertised in that irritating way --- in fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if he might actually consider boycotting products pushed by "those stupid annoying ads". In that case, his avoiding the ads is doing the advertisers a favor.
Remember X10, the little computer-interfaced security camera company? I was actually interested in buying a number of their products -- mostly to satisfy vague James Bond-only-nerdy urges -- ha ha, I can see it's the pizza guy who just rang my doorbell without leaving my computer!
That is until they began a marketing blitz of pop-up ads. I recall it as the first such assault I experienced. And I vowed never to buy products from such a company. And I haven't.
If blocking the pop-up ads on Youtube hurts the advertiser, and especially if it hurts Google, then good. Maybe they'll recognize that they're being hurt by their own behavior, and change their policy.
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Also, it's youtube. You know what's more annoying than websites all mimicking each other? 99.9% of the content on youtube, that's what.
The vuvuleza sound is actually quite an improvement. For instance, this morning one of my friends had sent me a link which turned out to be two minutes of a video of a rabbit, not doing anything. The buzzing sound gave it an ominous tone which was highly amusing, like the bunny was very very slowly moving toward a swarm of evil robotic bees.
The top youtube videos, what you might expect to be the cream of the crop, are even worse: "Justin Bieber LOVES Chinese Guy!" I can't imagine a horrible buzzing noise degrading the quality of that one. A bunch of clips from the world cup, most having already been taken down, a buzzing noise would at least be something. "Seattle Cop Punches Woman - Raw Footage " didn't have the option, a buzzing noise masking the incoherent shouting would have been nice.
It really failed to improve "Super Mario Beatbox" though.
Football is a game where you move the ball with your feet, not with your hands.
Actually, some games called "football" forbid moving the ball with your feet. The etymology is not clear, but there's a strong case that the term refers to the fact that the players are on foot (as opposed to, say, being on horseback).
most of the English speaking world call it soccer
According to wikipedia, you are wrong.
Really? You're using India, Chad and the Sudan as counterexamples? Let's take a look at countries where English is the primary language, and...whoops, there goes just about every blue spot on your map! Anyway, what they really call it in India is "not cricket so who cares?" :)
(To be fair, I've seen sources that suggest that Australia and Ireland should be in the "disputed category" rather than the "soccer" category.)
I also note that the article linked to that map you referenced says of those countries that call it "football", "In many of these countries, the term "soccer" is also widely used." This leads to the possible conclusion that both the statements "most of the English-speaking world calls it 'soccer'" and "most of the English-speaking world calls it 'football'" are both true. Without further hard evidence, I have to conclude that both you and the person you're responding to are talking out your asses. :)