Queen Elizabeth II has launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.
The Royal Channel will feature her Christmas Day message, and has recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family.
The launch marks the 50th anniversary of the Queen’s first televised festive address in 1957.
The palace said it hoped the site would make the 81-year-old monarch’s annual speech “more accessible to younger people and those in other countries”. [BBC]
The Xmas message video has garnered 346,084 views at the time of writing; I guess the Queen is not doing too bad as a Youtube debutant :)
“W00t”, a hybrid word of letters and numbers used by gamers and netizens is chosen as Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007 via an online poll.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word is used for expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay”.
I don’t use this quite often, but w00t often reminds me of the old steam-powered-train horn… like w00t w00t. I normally used it as a sign of approval for what others are saying in some online discussion boards.
An interesting music video teasing the current trend in internet world, where billions of dollars are pilled into startup companies that have no proven track record besides some optimistic forecast.
The song is not really great… but what a piece of viral marketing gem by the Richterscales.
A California college has recently begun what may be the first academic course about watching YouTube (the most popular video sharing site in the world).
About 35 Pitzer College students meet in a classroom, but work mostly online, where they view YouTube content and post their comments. Class lessons also are posted and students are encouraged to post videos. [Metro]
Honestly, a 12-year-old kid can do that; they don’t need to teach it in college.
A new version of Web Trend Map has been released.
When Information Architects Japan (iA) released their Web Trend Map in early 2007, it created lots of buzz around the net. Based on the Tokyo Metro Map (pdf), iA has arranged popular websites according to their functionality and influence.
The Web Trend Map is not really precise and useful, but it’s cool nonetheless.
Update Feb 2, 2008 – Web Trend Map 2008 Beta has been released.
Google has launched ‘Sky in Google Earth’, where you can now explore the universe from the comfort of your chair; there are 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies waiting to be discovered.
Screenshots of ‘Sky in Google Earth’ (Image courtesy of
Google Latlong)
You need to download the latest Google Earth (free) to use the feature.
Playboy launches their social network, Playboy U. Contrary to its softcore men’s magazine, the social media network branded themselves as an ‘exclusive college-only non-nude social network’.
[Read more from Techcrunch and Mashable]
