Blogs are changing

Blogs are the voice of the people. Most just use them as a good way to document and share their life with others. But time has shown that the blogosphere has a lot more influence than expected.

Blogs have a substantial role in the forming of political opinions. For example, during the Iraq war, there were countless blogs discussing it, bloggers expressing their views. They were in fact a lot more varied than the traditional left-right divide of the political spectrum.

A lot of famous politician too have their own personal blogs. There they can express their opinion "off the record", they can cut out the middleman while talking to the people. By the year 2004 blogs were so widely popular that they were and still are used by many experts and consultants. Blogs also have a significant role regarding the news spreading among people.

I can undoubtedly say that the role of blogs in our society will only increase. The best place to make your own is Yaika! as we have the most comprehensive and easy-to-use environment for doing that.

What's on Yaika!

Yaika! has a noteworthy amount of exciting and humorous video footage stored. I thought I could point some out to you.

Here is a funny video of an enactment of a possible scenario at the videogame convention. Now everyone can understand how some of the more popular of the first video games were really invented.

Some time ago I wrote about how you can successfully use Yaika! to observe your pets. You can find some footage of pets too when browsing Yaika! Right here is a video of a user's aquarium. It somewhat resembles the screensaver provided by Windows, but it's way more personalized as there are actual real fish. You can find more footage of fishes on the same channel. It's a also a great way to show off your pets to other enthusiasts.

You too can recommend funny and interesting videos to others when stumbling upon some :)

Nighttime F1

This weekend the first ever nighttime Formula One event took place in Singapore. It was a large-scale and costly undertaking, but it was a success. The event was truly impressive.

The whole track was covered with high-power lights, which were then doubled in case of emergencies. When you're plowing through a city doing 300 km/h, then it's save to assume it wouldn't be much fun when you'd suddenly be surrounded by total darkness. Formula One cars don't have headlights, you know. The viewers were able to see some spectacular views thanks to the shots filmed from the helicopter.

FIA (F1 executive company) has made a five-year contract with Singapore, which means we'll be able to see more of these nighttime races. It's quite exciting to observe.

The race that just took place is a great example of how networks have to come up with new and exciting ways to keep the audiences on their toes. The emphasis in this business is on new ideas and innovation. Yaika!, too, offers a whole new viewpoint on how to look at entertainment as such. We allow you to create your own content and then easily share that content with others.

Reviewers on the web

The world is full of different media outlets specialized in reviewing every product imaginable. There's a critic or an expert for each product out there. They write and write about all those things, push their opinions onto others, which aren't all that objective might I add.

But we all have the possibility to voice our opinions regarding anything without bosses breathing down our necks or worrying about our paycheck. The more popular of the products reviewed are mostly of the entertaining kind. Movies and music, for example. You'd have to be pretty dense, if you leave the cinema and have no feelings whatsoever. People do love to express themselves and voice their opinions. It's as easy as it'll ever be with the help of the Internet, especially with the huge audience it provides.

The web has a lot of different sites for doing that, places where ordinary people like you and me can say what they think of the latest movies and music albums. If you would also like to do that, then now is the time. You can easily make a separate channel on Yaika! and start broadcasting either video or audio.

Yaika! widget

For those who don't know - a widget is a small program, which everyone can place their website or embed in a email message. You don't have to have any prior knowledge regarding programming and such.

The Yaika! widget allows other to send you video messages without having to register as Yaika! users. To use the widget you must copy the code found here into your blogpost or e-mail signature. A small button appears in place of the code and clicking it allows anybody to send you video messages. You can then view received messages from you inbox on your Yaika! account.

I find this to be a nifty little feature as the users of the widget can make answering them extremely easy. If anyone reads your blogpost and feels the need to immediately argue or agree, then he or she can make a short video announcing his or her opinions in mere seconds. The same applies to e-mails, the receivers can send you an answer in a matter of seconds.

You can find the Yaika! widget by clicking the "Get a Yaika! widget" button on the right side of the site.

The last bits of good weather

The autumn is upon us and the weather is getting worse by the day. We still have the few days left to enjoy the sun and go outside without four layers of clothes. So if you are a sensible person, you really ought to go outside and make the best of it.

As I've mentioned in previous post, video is everywhere. You, too, could easily make a broadcast from a beautiful place somewhere in the nature. What could be better than to enjoy a day out with your friends and family, maybe even have a picnic of some sorts. While being in the wild, you can set up a laptop and a camera and film away. You might even catch a glimpse of an animal or two.

You shouldn't have much trouble finding a suitable connection. Lot's of parks are covered with WiFi, especially in or near cities. And as I've said before, 3G network is perfectly adequate for live feeds. Then there's the possibility of just recording the video and uploading it later.

Now get out there and enjoy the last few rays of sunshine!

Video - It's everywhere

When looking around, one can see, that the video format is starting to take over all forms of communication. Almost all messaging programs in the world allow videofeeds, you can also find that feature on most web based services. Just audio isn't enough anymore for communicating with people over long distances.

I've made some videocalls myself during the last few years, mostly to my friends. Back then we used instant messaging programs like MSN Messenger. Now there are countless versions of different programs of this kind. Most of them (at least the more popular ones) fully support videofeeds. The 3G networks around the world allow people to make videocalls with their phones, too. It's quite easy as most phones today have a built-in camera and support making those calls.

I can say without a doubt that although audio-only forms of communication are the most used in the world today, in ten years or so, video will take over.

Yaika! as the perfect diary

I don't know, how it is now, but back in the day lot's of teenagers (and why not adults) had a diary, usually with a small padlock, hidden away in their nightstand drawer. They wrote all of their most sacred thoughts and wishes in there. To be honest, people still keep a diary as such, but as with most other things in our life, this too is done via the Internet.

This move to the web has come with the liberation of people's minds, they're are no longer in hiding, afraid of showing their "real me". Instead of keeping your worries and success to themselves, people now feel free to share them with others in the depths of the Internet. All the people who still wish to keep their personal business a secret can easily protect their privacy by using a password.

I think Yaika! is the perfect place for keeping your very own online diary. You can add a whole new dimension to your entries thanks to the comprehensive multimedia functions that Yaika! provides. For example, I've almost finished my driving exams. Now, if I want to do a post about my latest driving lesson (maybe it was extra exciting), then I can also add some video footage of said lesson right next to my text blog. I might overhear a funny conversation on the bus and I may be insufficient at describing the truly comical part of it. Well, no worries, I can then easily upload a recording of said conversation (which I could have recorded with my cellphone).

Yaika! is the best platform for keeping your very own web diary, because it supports all the multimedia formats (text, video and audio) and has a comprehensive social network.

Surprising minispeakers

A few days ago, when I was looking at the latest gadget-news, I stumbled upon a nifty little product. It's a pair of capsule speakers called X-Mini. When put together, the speakers take the form of a small sphere which can fit into anyone's pocket. But when you twist it, it opens up to two small and surprisingly capable speakers.

I'm sure most of you are asking the same question - how can something so tiny produce even remotely good sound? Well, to be honest, they really can't produce that good of a sound, but when you're looking for extremely portable little speakers for your iPod or laptop, then X-Mini is the choice for you. Despite their size they're perfectly adequate for short sessions of music or videos. They even have some bass response, which is done with a vacuum area in the speakers.

I can already imagine how you'll stumble upon something very interesting while browsing Yaika! and want clearer sound (laptop speakers are notorious for their bad quality). You then take a small sphere from your pocket, open it up into two speakers and connect to your computer. For random uses X-Mini is the best product.

Chris Pirillo

Chris Pirillo was one of the first people to notice that nothing on TV interested him and started producing his own shows. Chris is a reputable technology buff and always keeps up with the latest of technical innovations. This gave him the idea of doing his own broadcasts on the subject.

The problem was that there were no webpages for doing such broadcasts, so he took use of his own knowledge and built a website from scratch. Youtube was there to allow him to upload prerecorded videos, but Chris wanted to do it live. Now there are numerous sites that offer this kind of functionality, but they all originate from the US. Yaika! is the first of his kind in Europe.

Chris has actually worked as a computer technician and thus knows what he's talking about. You can find his videos on Youtube, CNN and his own website(http://www.pirillo.com/). The latter of the sites named allows you to see Chris live with a chatroom working simultaneously with the broadcast. As I've mentioned before, the main subjects are all related to technology. You can often find commentaries and reviews of the latest electronics and the like.

Just like Chris, everybody has the possibility to make their own shows. From a technical standpoint it's both very simple to prerecord the video and upload it or do it live. Although the last option is quite stressful for the most of us :)

Filming is easy

Everyone who's even the least bit in the know regarding the latest technology knows that you can find cameras on every electronic device imaginable. It started out with just photographs, but nowadays all the cameras are also capable of capturing video. Filming is now easier than ever.

People can record anything they want in video format with ease. Homemade videos became popular in the '80s when the VHS (the ordinary video cassette) came out. As time passed, cameras became cheaper and cheaper and the technology captured the masses. Now we've moved on to the digital age, which makes videos even easier to store and edit.

You don't have to actually buy a camera in order film something. Cameras found on other electronic devices are perfectly adequate to capture the moment, when need be. All us have at least one device equipped with a camera, they're found on phones and even mp3-players. Some of the new phones even have such good optics that the term "camera with a phone" is used :) Also, all the new laptops have integrated webcams.

The editing of the recordings has become incredibly easy, if you do a bit of research. The depth of the Internet contain a large amount video editing software (a lot of it free). Even Windows' own Windows Movie Maker is capable of doing the simplest of tasks.

Where ever you are, you can almost always broadcast it using Yaika!

Yaika! - not just for storing videos

I bet lot's of people who have heard of Yaika! think that it's another run-of-the-mill video hosting site. Well, in reality, that's not the case at all. Yaika! is most certainly not meant for video storage only (unlike Youtube, which is a great website, but not the same principle). It's the social networking capabilities that make Yaika! stand apart from the others. Finding friends and sharing videos with them is a breeze. Also, the user interface is incredibly easy to use.

Another noteworthy difference is the fact, that most of the videos uploaded to Youtube are anything from music videos to full episodes of popular TV shows, but almost all of the videos on Yaika! are purely user generated content, almost nothing commercial. These are more exciting to watch as they are unedited and realistic.

So if you're ever bored, Yaika! is a good place to hang around, you'll surely find something of your liking here :)

If videos aren't for you

Some readers might have the impression, that Yaika! is only meant for broadcasting videos. Well, I want to change that impression. In reality, Yaika! allows you to successfully make radio broadcasts, too. It's just as easy as with video feeds.

Radio shows have quite a few upsides. First of all, it's suitable for people who aren't interested in showing their face in the public webspace, who don't want to reveal their identity. This could because of many reasons, for example, when the subjects under discussion shouldn't really be discussed. Secondly, everyone is not comfortable and confident enough in front of a camera to make a video for everyone else to see. In other words, if you're shy, you don't have to worry :)

To be honest, the so-called podcasts have become quite popular in the Internet during the last few years. They're basically just audio-blogs, but instead of writing all of your thoughts down, you take a microphone and speak into it. This is time saving (no need to type anything) and more interesting for the audience. Telling a story verbally makes it so much better because of all the articulation and emphasis.

If you're not that fond of being in front of a camera, then Yaika! is perfectly good for radio broadcasts, too. And if even that doesn't interest you, there's always the good old text blog :)

Street magic

There has been a time in every kid's life when he or she has dreamed of becoming a police officer or a fireman. A magician is also a popular occupation among children. Most of us have done a card trick to a friend or two. But there are only a few people, who actually have the determination and willpower to practice enough to became a professional.

In the last few years certain kind of magicians have gained a lot more popularity than others - namely street magicians. David Blaine was the man who really took to the masses. Some even believe him to have actual supernatural powers. He walked around the streets of New York with his cameraman and showed all kinds of magic tricks to unsuspecting by-passers. One of the most incredible of them was when David Blaine asked random people to think about the name of the person they love the most and after a few seconds a taxi drove by with the name of the loved one painted on the side. In addition to breathtaking illusions, David has performed some pretty might I even say scary feats. He holds the record for holding one's breath underwater (17 minutes and 4 seconds). A few years ago he spent 44 days in a glassbox above the River Thames in London with only enough water to take two teaspoons a day.

Lately there have been appearing more people with similar talents. One of those people is Chris Angel, who, like David, does some pretty mindboggling tricks (but not as lifethreatening). But what I'm trying to say here is, that all the people who weren't able to make their dreams a reality can do that now. After finishing school and landing on a stable enough job you can have some free time to practice all those swift moves. And if you look at the older posts on Yaika! blog you can find some good tips on how to make a live moving broadcast.

Now all you have to do is start looking for that old deck of cards :)

The fascinating world of Goldberg machines

I don't think a lot of people know what a Goldberg machine is from the top of their head. No worries, you'll soon find out. But I am certain than everyone has seen at least one of them, probably in cartoons (as they are quite difficult to build in real life).

By definition a Goldberg machine is a liberately overengineered apparatus that performs a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted fashion. This may be hard to imagine, but fortunately I've got some visual aids. Here is an episode of Mythbusters where they construct a Goldberg machine. By the way, the machines got their name after a cartoonist named Rube Goldberg who used to draw such contraptions in his comics.

My call to you is to do some thinking and come up your own Goldberg machine. Then you'll have to build it (I recommend ordinary everyday object as building blocks). You should use the help of your friends too, the more the merrier anyway :) But why not broadcast the whole project? It would be like a Behind-the-scenes sneak preview. People always like watching something exciting happening. They can make suggestions and give you tips, some might even have prior experience.

The main event is still the actual execution of the machine. If you look around, you can find quite a few of Goldberg machines' videos, but you can make it with a twist. It would be really exciting to film the first run live. This way the audience can partake in the suspense of seeing if it all works out exactly as planned.

Showing off your talents

Remember, when a while back I wrote about people who had become famous with the help of the Internet? Well, most of the people covered in that post were a bit weird and extraordinary. This actually isn't the case that only people who show off their peculiarities become popular, not at all. All the so-called "normal" talents are valued by a lot of people.

This can be any kind of everyday activity, something you're able to do very fast or with inhuman precision. It would be better if it was something exciting to watch. Seeing some type 500 words per minute might not be as fulfilling as one might think. The first think I can think of is sports. They're always popular among all age groups. BMX riders, who can jump exceptionally high, pull a hundred backflips and the like. A lot of those "supermen" are hidden away amongst the amateur sportsmen, not as much so with professional sportsmen (we see them on TV every day).

There are other interesting talents, too. The ones that are more on the creative side. Some people have such vivid imagination that they are able to make up a song on a given word on the spot, others can draw you room entirely based on their memories (after having only seen it once). These are more like the talents people are born with, but exhilarating to watch anyway.

It doesn't matter if you have perfected your gift with years' worth of hard work or were just born with it. Show them to other people around the world and do this using Yaika!, the easiest way to make an online video stream.

Share your office life

Everyone, who's ever worked in an office, knows that from time to time it gets pretty boring. I'm not saying that people are lazy and work-shy, it's just that sometimes you have to wait because of someone else. And when people get bored, they find something to do.

A lot of offices have some specific traditions for fighting boredom. Some people throw paper planes out of the windows, others play videogames, everyone's got their own thing. There are work groups that have come up with entirely new games of their own, which are played using ordinary office supplies and the like. They even host championships and the winners receive prizes during company picnics. I've even heard of an office that bets on normal daily things. For example, how many cups of coffee does a certain colleague drink during a day.

If some office worker happens to read this post, I'm sure he or she can name some of their own office's traditions. But why not share those with other people (and workers) around the world? Set up a few cameras and when something is about to happen, start filming and with the help of Yaika! this broadcast will reach all of the world. This way you might get a few new ideas of your own. Be sure to ask for permission from all of your coworkers beforehand :)

If an executive happened to stumble on this post, then he or she shouldn't be too alarmed. In reality people do a lot more work and play around much less than I've made it look like.

The advertisements of modern times

As time goes by it gets more and more difficult to get the attention of consumers. Advertisers have to constantly come up with new and radical ways to make their product noticeable among the general public. But it doesn't really have to be all that complicated.

People now use the term viral advertisement, which is pretty much self explanatory. But to those who didn't get it - a viral advertisement is something that spreads all by itself using the Internet's social networks, just like pathological viruses. This, of course, doesn't mean that they're like spam, being distributed against the will of the receivers. No, the users spread it out of their own free will.

A good viral advertisement always gets straight to the point, but does it in a humorous way. It has to be different from others, stand out. Otherwise the word-of-mouth phenomena won't work, but that is crucial to the success of a viral advertisement, because people like to share funny and interesting things with their friends. I have a great example that was uploaded to Yaika. You can find it here. First of all, it's a beautiful girl, which automatically draws the viewers' attention. Secondly, it all starts with a humorous approach from the very beginning. And finally, everything is made clear with simple and easy-to-understand examples. It's a perfect template for anyone thinking of doing something similar.

If you are at least a bit inventive and funny, then viral advertising is the way to get your products or services out into the public, because it exploits the possibilities of the Internet's social networks and the word-of-mouth phenomena. Your goal is to make something unique and humorous, but at same time talk about the product itself. This is the way to get the attention of consumers.

Keeping memories Yaika! style

I think photo albums are a thing of the past. Video is taking over the world with great speed. You'll notice this trend within recording all kinds of family events and memories in general.

Most of us have a whole separate cupboard specifically for storing all those photo albums. Even I have one :) But more and more people record their lives in video format (this already began in the VHS era). I would like to suggest the idea of video albums. That doesn't mean you'll have to designate another cupboard for stacks and stacks of DVDs and cassettes, but instead you upload them to the Internet. For example, make a separate channel for family events here on Yaika! and start uploading your home-videos.

But what to do with all of those photos collecting dust in the cupboards? Well, you can lend a scanner from a friend or visit your local office supply store, most of them have a service for digitalizing your data. This way you can have all your albums in a digital format, too. There's a whole bunch of websites for maintaining photos and some even let you edit them in some way or another. Then there's the possibility of making a slide-show out of the photos and saving them in video format, thus allowing you to upload them to your family channel on Yaika! Unlike many other video hosting sites, Yaika! allows you to make the channel available to only friends and family.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a thousand pictures.

Sometimes you can just blog

As you might have noticed, every channel has an "Add post" button. Clicking that allows you to publish ordinary text blogs on your own channel. But unlike many other blogging sites, Yaika! has a very comprehensive text editor that has all the main features you can usually find in office suite software. You don't have to have any knowledge in HTML to use it.

All the most frequently used editing options are available. You can add pictures to your text (although the pictures need to be hosted somewhere on the web), you can hyperlink any word and you can even make tables inside your posts, if that makes it easier to understand. It's possible to insert flash-animations and videos. Changing background and font colour is allowed too. It also has the mandatory "Find and Replace" function. There's even a spellchecker.

If your post requires additional formatting and a presentation of some more complicated information than just text, you can easily write it directly in Yaika! There's no need for a separate text editor. But it's also entirely possible to use it for just writing plain text :)

The differences in recording with Yaika!

Recording videos here in Yaika! is a bit different than what you're used to. Of course, I don't mean by principle, recording is still recording, but the difference lies in what you can record.

Firstly, your own live feeds. Just push the "Record" button and after the show is over, you can watch it again and again from your channel. If you have more than one cameras filming, you can choose at any time which camera is being recorded at the moment. You might feel like a real director while doing this on-the-fly editing. Just like actual TV people sitting in the studios, you have a comprehensive view of what all the cameras are showing.

In addition to your own shows you can also record other people's live feeds. Maybe you see someone showing something very interesting (at least to you), but you're afraid the broadcaster will delete it from his or her channel later on. No worries! You can record the show and save it on your own channel. This allows you and all other interested to watch the video again with no limit.

You can expect similar exciting technological solutions from Yaika! in the future, too.

Humour for everybody

Almost each and every one of us enjoys some kind of humor. It's fun to watch something on the TV and laugh out loud, there's no denying it. It's a known fact that laughing reduces stress and relaxes almost every muscle in your body(that is why we feel weak after a laughing fit). Why not amuse others with your own little jokes?

Once again Yaika! comes to aid. Here you can easily broadcast your own sketchshow. Take a couple of your funniest friends alongside and start writing down some ideas. There can be many sources for inspiration. You can make up your own absurd situations or watch some already known shows (Big Train, Monty Python, Blackadder, Dave Chapelle). Still, most of the material comes from real life.

A good idea is to act out some of your own awkward moments in life (we've all had those). Believe me, they're even funnier in hindsight while being a bit exaggerated. You can always portray some of the most common parts of today's popculture. There's plenty of shows out there that have some really funny sides to it that you can make a parody of.

Meeting people in Yaika!

Just like other websites with social capabilities (e.g. Myspace) Yaika! too offers the features and possibilities to make new acquaintances and maybe even close friends. It's entirely possible you'll find your soulmate. Interesting people always attract a lot of other people, who are mostly interested in getting to know one another. Why not use Yaika! as a dating service? A video allows you to get to know the person much better than staring at a picture.

With the recording feature, each one of you can record a somewhat of an introductory video of who you are and what you do. You can place your little video on your channel so that everyone could see it as the first thing see when looking at your account page. After finding someone you can create your own private channel and chat some more over there. It might very well happen that you find an interesting person to talk with or you might even find your future significant other.

Now all you have to do is write down some of your best qualities, sit in front if a camera and start reading them out loud :)

Parties of the future

The following might seem a bit too futuristic, but keep reading anyway.

Let's say you have to organize a party. Now, half of the people are too far away to actually attend, but the urge to have a good time with said people is huge. You can then let someone else organize another party at that remote location and then link the parties together via webcams and Yaika!

Indeed, that would require a lot of cameras and big screen TVs on both ends of the parties so that the effect or partying together would really seem real. But this means there are going to be noticeable expenditures. The aforementioned problem will subdue with time as the cost of electronics is always decreasing, but there's a far bigger issue - people might feel too weird when trying to have good time with other people via webcams. But then again, all new things feel awkward at first.

Of course, if this all is going to happen, it's going to be in the distant future, but it's something to think about. The Internet gives us endless communicative possibilities, we just have to find ways to use them.

Yaika! version update

Yaika! has once again had a version update. We've added a few new features. The most noteworthy of those would be the prominent banner on the front page saying "Get it on!". Clicking this banner allows unregistered users to try and broadcast a live radio- or videoshow using Yaika!

After logging in, all the registered users can see a list of the latest news on the right. The center of the page now features a window with the first lines of the latest post published on this very blog. You can remove if this window if need be. The bottom right corner has a list of Yaika! highlights (the most visited pages).

That's it for now, but there are more upgrades to come soon :)

Something for gamers

Everyone who's a least bit interested in video games, has on an occasion ro two played a first person shooter (FPS). That means that the player, obviously, see the game from a first person perspective. Those games are quite popular because of their online capabilities. Most of them also offer a "spectator mode", which allows the player, as the name states, spectate the ongoing match. One might learn some new tricks or just kill some time this way.

A few days back I started thinking about the possibility of a spectator mode in other games. Most games of other genres don't have that feature out if the box. For example, you'd really like to see, how your friend goes through that particular track with a unreal time in that racing game or how someone gets through an especially though place in a platformer. This is where Yaika! comes in :)

Using special software, you can record anything happening on your desktop just as it you would with a webcam. Then you can broadcast your desktop over Yaika! on your own channel. You can use this trick with different FPS games that actually feature a spectator mode. This way you can lighten the load of the game's own server.

Hopefully I gave you some tips to improve your gaming experience :)