YouTube is certainly a company that has plenty of resources at their disposal: so why do they feel the need to so closely emulate Pixelodeon with both their site design and video elements for their new Project: Direct video competition? Take a look at the examples below:

Steve Woolf has a great writeup about the whole thing over on his blog. As a curator for this past year’s Pixelodeon, it irks me to see a company like YouTube stick it to the people who have gone to great lengths to support and promote online video talent. As Steve says:

…I find it hard to believe that the YouTube designers were not aware of Pixelodeon, since we had a number of prominent YouTubers attend, and in fact we had an entire screening dedicated to YouTube (embedded above).

We created a strong brand, and YouTube appears to be “borrowing” concepts that can potentially create confusion between the two events. The chances are very remote that this is a coincidence.

I don’t know, it seems pretty jerky. This kind of thing does happens on the web pretty often from a design and concept standpoint, but not usually in a situation where two entities aren’t competing in any way. Pixelodeon promoted YouTubers; they shouldn’t get ripped off because of it.

Maybe they’re spending so much of Google’s money on legal fees that they couldn’t afford a good design team.

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Apparently while I was gone, eMusic started selling DRM-free audiobooks from Random House. This is fantastic news, considering the vice-like grib that Audible has on the audiobook market, both on their own site and via iTunes. I discovered this when I went to eMusic to kill some of my 40 downloads a month, and attempted to get Carl Hiaasen’s Nature Girl (I loved his last book, Skinny Dip).

Then the big “BUT” hit me (hehe…): You have to add an additional $9.99 audiobook subscription to your account to get them, and it’s only good for one book a month! I’m already paying $15 a month for my downloads, why can’t they just subtract 20 or 30 downloads from me for the book and call it a day? Can’t I even have that as an option? I don’t usually use all my music downloads and I would love to try some of their books, but I’m not ready to fork over another $10 a month.

It’s still a better deal than iTunes, where most books are anywhere from $10-$25, but I don’t want to be locked into a subscription for books when frankly I won’t be downloading one every month. Maybe I’m missing some vital piece of information, or a trick to have it taken from my current downloads, but I don’t think so.

As an aside, I used the audiobook of iWoz to help me fall asleep on the plane back from Tokyo. Not because I find it boring, but Steve Wozniak’s Patrick Lawlor’s (thanks Fats Vernon!) voice is just so soothing!

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Now playing: Chromeo - Bonafied Lovin’ (Tough Guys)
via FoxyTunes

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Just got back from Japan yesterday, and I’m exhausted from all the time traveling involved. I left Tokyo at 6PM Sunday, and arrived in San Francisco at 11AM… Sunday. Frickin’ weird. Luckily, I didn’t have a chance to meet and marry my own father, thus negating my very existence.

Here are my photos, and Ryan wrote up a good rundown of the trip on his blog too. Everything started off a little hectic with Tokyo Game Show, plus the obvious language barrier. I tried to cram using JapanesePod101 (a fantastic podcast, btw, along with Japancast) which would have worked wonders had I not started listening to it on the plane ride over there. Also, sitting in the middle of a five-person row for a 10-hour flight? No fun.

Overall, my favorite parts of the trip included drinking spring water from a waterfall at Kiyomizu, eating okonomiyaki, being chased by hungry deer in Nara, and shopping in Shibuya.

But a lot went down while I was away, obviously! I’m proud to report that my first (paper) magazine article has been published in this month’s PC Gamer Magazine! It’s a gaming preview for the next World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. I’m super excited about it, so check it out! Here’s a preview below, it’s on page 43:

Sorry, had to blur the text — don’t want to get sued before they pay me! And finally, I did a photo shoot with my friend Lan Bui while I was in Santa Monica, and he’s posted them on his Flickr page. I was really nervous, but we had a lot of fun and I’m psyched about how the pictures came out. OK, I have a ton of crap to catch up on before I pass out from exhaustion. Back to the grind!

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The bags are packed, the gadgets are charged, and tomorrow morning we’ll be heading off for the 10-hour flight to Japan! The first few days will be spent shooting Mahalo Daily episodes (both at Tokyo Game Show and around the city), and then it’ll be vacation time! I’m not sure how much I’ll be online, so this will probably be the last post for the next ten days or so.

Some of you may be asking: “Mahalo Daily? Way to get that out on time, Veronica!” Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s actually the Japan trip that’s causing most of the delay! We wanted to have a good amount of episodes under our belts before I went away, so look for it soon.

Off to bed now, thanks again to everyone who gave me great travel advice! Arigato!

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