Google has formally demanded that Microsoft yank its new YouTube app for Windows Phone, which allows users to skip ads and download YouTube videos — both of which violate YouTube's terms of service. The Verge has the full text of Google's cease-and-desist letter, which is dated today.

ReadWrite reported on the Microsoft app's apparent rule-breaking last week.

Updated 10:24am PT on May 16: A Microsoft PR representative emailed us a statement in response to Google's letter:

YouTube is consistently one of the top apps downloaded by smartphone users on all platforms, but Google has refused to work with us to develop an app on par with the apps for other platforms. Since we updated the YouTube app to ensure our mutual customers a similar YouTube experience, ratings and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive. We’d be more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs. In light of Larry Page’s comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.

The Verge, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are all reporting that Google will launch a streaming-music service at its Google I/O developers conference on Wednesday. 

While Google hasn't commented, according to the reports Google has already struck licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment - it already has a deal with Warner Music Group. 

No word on pricing yet, but the Times said that there would be no "free" tier of service. The new service is expected to be accessed via the Google Play store for Android devices, but Google is also said to be working on a streaming-music product for its YouTube division. 

Details are expected to be announced at the Google I/O keynote on Wednesday. 

Were you surprised that the Boston Marathon bombers were caught on video? You shouldn't have been. How about a meteor falling in Russia? Or a pizza delivery guy urinating on a customer's door after receiving too small a tip? Then there's that plane crashing on a Russian highway.

All these phenomena are part of an ubertrend I call Voyeurgasm - and it's changing our lives and maybe even your future.

CBS dedicates part of its website, called Caught on Tape, to videos like these. It's a nod to the global popularity of YouTube, which announced this March that it reached 1 billion monthly users who watch some 6 billion hours of video each month.

The History Of Voyeurgasm

Voyeurgasm, the "I like to watch" ubertrend, made its debut with the Rodney King beating in 1991, arguably one of the first surreptitiously videotaped events to make headlines. What came next was a host of candid moments caught by camcorders, surveillance cameras or mobile phones - a wave that virtually guarantees that one day just about everything will be digitally captured.

This ubertrend spurred a host of subtends, including reality shows, like MTV's The Real World, which debuted in 1992; Celebrity Worship Syndrome, coined in 2003 and propelled by "pixel paparazzis;" HDTV in 1998; helicopter police chases, including the infamous 1994 O.J. Simpson car chase; YouTube in 2005; and now Google Glass.

(See also Google Glass: What Do You Want To Know About Google's Internet Eyewear.)

The current concerns about Google Glass and the privacy issues its surreptitious use entails are just a preview of things to come. Here's how Voyeurgasm will reshape your future, including business ideas and career opportunities:

1-3. Streaming Media

With YouTube now receiving some 72 hours of video every minute, it's evident that growth of mobile videos opens many opportunities for entrepreneurs to create dedicated sites to harness the millions of hours of videos that will be uploaded each minute by 2020. Here are a few ideas that merit your attention:

1. Makeup Videos: A quick Google search suggests that this segment is wide open with Makeup Geek being the top player. Not only could beauty sites encourage the improved application of makeup, but they would also propel new makeup trends, like High Definition Makeup.

2. Nature/Underwater Videos: Nature and underwater video searches lead to YouTube channels - but YouTube is a general-interest destination and is not likely to be the first choice of dedicated birdwatchers or snorkelers. This presents an opportunity to sell outdoors or underwater gear to intrepid visitors.

3. Shopping Videos: We like to buy stuff, so we watch a lot of "unboxing" videos on YouTube. That means there is plenty of opportunity to create innovative shopping videos that provide visitors with quick, yet informative insights about buying particular products. Once again a search for "shopping videos" leads to positively benign results.

4. Video Recruitment

In the next four years, about 20 million college graduates will be looking for full-time employment. Since few possess relevant experience, a quick 90-second video might give a prospective employer a better insight into their talents. Monster accepts videos for recruiters, but few recruitment sites let you add video profiles. One new player, GetHired.com does play up this feature.

5. Looking At Cooking

As the Cox News Service reported back in Jan. 2007, "It's one of the ironies of modern life that cooking shows and books are so hugely popular when much of the time we eat on the move or settle down in front of the TV with a microwaved frozen dinner. The preparing, cooking, tasting and eating of food have become voyeuristic pleasures separated from physical reality." The trend is dubbed "gastroporn." While this segment may be well-covered by television networks, what about facility and supply management? Think kitchen demonstration studios or food prep staffers who specialize in optimizing food for video consumption.

6. YouTube Studio Rentals

So now you're ready to shoot your gastroporn or job-seeking vid - but how do you make it great? Some folks have beautiful decks or nice living rooms but few have access to camera-friendly backdrops, let alone the lighting setups needed to shoot professional-looking videos. It's odd that entrepreneurs haven't thought of opening up a national chain of "YouTube Studios" - facilities you could rent by the hour to shoot your talkshow or other viral inspiration.

7. Video Accessories

You have decided to become a pixel paparazzi- on a budget. So can you handhold your iPhone or Android handset to shoot your videos? Sure, but some kind of steady grip would be better. With the notable exception of UK-based Modahaus, which offers the iPhone Steady Stand ($20), few companies have staked out this product category. One Kickstarter project, the Paparazzo Light, failed - perhaps due to a lack of audience reach or functionality.

8. Surveillance Gear

A market research report from ReportsNReports estimates that the market for smart surveillance gear and video analytics will explode from $14 billion in 2012 to $39 billion by 2020. A poll conducted after the Boston bombing found broad public support for surveillance gear, with 78% of Americans saying they thought surveillance cameras were a good idea. Frankly, I'm amazed that those Russian dashboard cams are not more popular here in America.

Are you ready to leverage the increased transparency offered by Voyeurgasm? You know what they say, "There are people who make things happen, there are those who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened." This ubertrend offers the opportunity to do the first two at the same time so you don't have to do the last one. 

See also:

• 10 Compelling Ways People Plan To Use Google Glass
• 5 Socially Unacceptable Things You're Going To Do WIth Google Glass
• Google Glass: Our Lives Are Not Reality TV
• Google Glass: Is There Any Way To Jam It?

Microsoft appears to be sticking a finger in Google's eye with the launch of its new YouTube app for Windows Phone. The app, ReadWrite has confirmed, strips out YouTube ads when it plays back videos and allows users to easily download video by way of a prominent "download" button.

Both behaviors violate the cardinal rules YouTube imposes on developers who use its service. To get around those restrictions, it appears that Microsoft reverse-engineered some portion of the software used to access YouTube's basic functions, which are generally known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. If so, that could mean Microsoft can do just about whatever it wants with its YouTube app.

Google had previously declined to build a YouTube or any other Google apps for Windows Phone 8, citing the lack of users on the platform.To get an official YouTube app on Windows Phone, Microsoft decided to circumvent Google and just build the app itself. 

YouTube's restrictions, found in section II of its terms of service, are fairly explicit:

Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality for Your users or other third parties to:

[...]

7. modify, replace, interfere with or block advertisements placed by YouTube in the YouTube Data, YouTube audiovisual content, or the YouTube player;

[...]

11. store copies of YouTube audiovisual content;

In a variety of tests, ReadWrite found that the Microsoft YouTube app indeed appears to be stripping pre-roll ads from videos that would normally appear. Ads appear on both this video from BuzzFeed on the Web and Android as well as this video from popular YouTuber Jenna Marbles. Neither of the videos had pre-roll ads when viewed via the Microsoft app.

As for downloading, that's fairly easy to spot in Microsoft’s YouTube app — there's an entire button dedicated to it. See the screenshots below.

Microsoft admitted to Neowin.net, a technology website that focuses on Microsoft, Apple and Linux news, that it had re-architected some of YouTube’s APIs to get the app to work. A Microsoft PR rep confirmed the statement below and offered no further comment:

Windows Phone invested additional engineering resources against existing APIs to re-architect a Windows Phone app that delivers a great YouTube experience, including support for unique Windows Phone 8 features such as Live Tiles and Kids Corner. Microsoft did not receive any additional technical support to create the Windows Phone YouTube app.

Neither Microsoft nor YouTube had responded to requests for further comment as of this morning. We'll update the story when and if we hear back.

This wouldn't be the first time that Microsoft has reversed-engineered Google. In February 2011, Google caught Microsoft's Bing search engine copying Google search results. Google had set up a “honeypot” trap to catch Microsoft in the act.

Fullscreen, a media company founded in 2011 and built entirely on YouTube, announced Friday afternoon the first Google Glass YouTube app, letting users seamlessly upload video directly to the service. The app is called BEAM and it also gives users the option to share the URL via Twitter with the automatic #throughglass hashtag. 

Prior to Fullscreen's app, Glass users were restricted to sharing video through their Google+ accounts. Check out Fullscreen's video below:

And here is the company's step-by-step breakdown of how to broaden Glass' video-sharing reach:

Watching Coachella from your phone just got easier. At long last, iOS users can tap into YouTube's live video streams, thanks to an update pushed out to the app yesterday. 

It may seem like a minor thing, but the addition of livestreaming support to YouTube for iOS is a pretty nice touch, especially if you're getting your "TV" content from your tablet or smartphone. This is a win for cord cutters. 

As somebody who relies exclusively on Internet streaming boxes and mobile devices to fill their 48" HDTV screen with moving pictures, I've long wished YouTube's native app would give me access to the live-streamed stuff. In recent years, YouTube has been making live video feeds available for whatever major political and entertainment events they can get the rights to stream. This includes music festivals like Coachella, sporting events and just about every major televised event in the course of each presidential election. You know, exactly the kind of thing for which we tune into live TV.

Internet TV User Experience: It's Getting There...

The problem with relying on the Internet for TV content is that the user experience is unpolished. As exciting as all this new TV tech might seem, there's still something to be said for sitting in front of a television set, pressing a button and leaning back. You can't really do that with Internet TV, but the experience is getting there. 

Part of the equation is smart app design such as that found in iPad video apps like Frequency, ShowYou and Vodio.  YouTube's own four-month-old iPad app is the best the service has ever looked on Apple's market-leading tablet (it's naturally quite at home on Android as well).  Still, while a great mobile app UI is important, it's useless without the means to get it to the TV, which is where technologies like Apple's AirPlay come in. And of course, the most crucial part of all is the content itself. This update stands to make YouTube a much better source of that content. Meanwhile, if Aereo survives the TV industry's litigious onslaught, it will be, if you'll pardon the buzzword, a total game-changer for this type of TV-viewing experience. 

YouTube's Role In TV's Future

On the content front, YouTube has been ramping up its original, TV-style content for awhile now, even opening its own TV studio in Los Angeles. Like Hulu and Netflix, YouTube knows that people are going to be turning to the Internet for more and more  of their TV-viewing, and they want to stake out as big of a slice of that pie as possible. 

But while binging on Arrested Development on Netflix is great and all, certain shows and events are best enjoyed live. Trying to tune into those things via tablets and streaming boxes is a pretty clunky experience. As the interfaces mature and content selection widens, it's going to get better. YouTube is one of players that will be right at the heart of this evolution, which will lead to the future of what we now think of as "TV." Adding live streaming support inches us toward that future just enough that it's worth noting. 

This is not a blockbuster, life-altering feature for cord cutters - It's not like HBO just gave us all HBO Go access for free out of the kindness of their hearts - but it's an important step toward making mobile devices more suitable sources of television-style content. Combined with apps like Aereo and Hulu Plus, YouTube makes "TV" something that increasingly comes from the Internet, not from cable providers. 

Out of all the lines the press uses to describe Google’s interests in funding better content on its biggest social platform, the dominant one by far is: “YouTube is trying to compete with television.”

Right.

Yes, Google in all its infinite wisdom wants to compete with the decades-old giant that is the multi-billion dollar television industry with paltry investments of $100 million or so every couple of months.  /sarcasm

YouTube Cannot Replace TV

The notion is just plain silly - it even made Time Warner’s CEO laugh. But this motif, if you will, continues to dominate the discussion - much to the chagrin of YouTube itself. Whenever YouTube invests in networks or lures mainstream celebrities (or almost celebrities) to start “channels,” which it has been doing with increasing frequency over the last two years, that same line pops up. I am officially sick of it, and YouTube is too.  

2011 was the year marking Google’s biggest investments into video content, and it was this same year that the “YouTube competing with TV” meme was born. Media outlets everywhere served up some derivative of this sentence, including Reuters, which wrote “the Google-owned site is issuing a direct challenge to the television industry.” A direct challenge!  

Can you blame Reuters though, when everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the Hollywood Reporter, was doing the same thing? Hell, I am guilty of it, too.

And it isn't going away. Canada's The Star printed the headline just yesterday: “YouTube aims to compete with TV.” 

No, Canada, YouTube does not aim to compete with TV. How could it?

TV Still Rules

YouTube doesn't want anyone to think it has any intention of replacing television. The company hews to the sentiment first expressed by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes not so long ago - namely, that it's ludicrous to think YouTube's relatively tiny content budgets, ad rolls, and Internet infrastructure could really compete with the giant television industry.

YouTube — realistically — views its place in the entertainment industry as complementaryto television and Hollywood. If you consider things in light of the Life is Like a Jar of Rocks analogy, here the rocks are Hollywood, the pebbles are television, and the sand is YouTube and Web content. There’s plenty of room in the jar for everyone, and no one is trying to replace the others.  

YouTube wants to be the sand to TV’s pebbles in the entertainment jar, everyone. Let’s all write it together so we remember: YouTube is the sand to TV’s pebbles in the glass jar of entertainment.

There's only one problem. No matter how accurate the analogy, rocks, pebbles and sand make for far less interesting copy than the threat of taking down TV. No matter how ridiculous that might be.

Updated: I've rewritten the last section in light of new information. 

Image via YouTube. 

Google is reportedly working on a music subscription service to compete with the likes of Spotify, MOG and Rdio. It might seem crazy to jump into a crowded market whose basic business model is already questionable – but for Google it makes perfect sense. 

The company is already a huge, albeit unofficial, player in streaming music. YouTube is now a top destination for listening to songs and albums, not to mention the trove of remixes and parodies that get uploaded everyday. Today, when teenagers want to hear a new song, they don't turn on the radio or buy a CD. They go to YouTube. 

There's good reason for that. First off, it's free. It also has an enormous amount of music. I've had premium subscriptions to Rdio, Rhapsody and (currently) Spotify. As extensive as those services' libraries are, there's lots of music they don't have. Whenever I can't find something on Spotify, I check YouTube and SoundCloud. It's usually there. Want to stream the Beatles from your phone? Their songs are all over YouTube, not Spotify. 

YouTube: The World's Biggest Accidental Music Service

If there was any question about the critical role YouTube plays in music discovery, it was answered last week when Billboard announced it will factor YouTube listens into the formula behind its Hot 100 singles chart. In a post-"Call Me Maybe" world, it's impossible to accurately analyze the popularity of a song without taking YouTube plays into consideration.     

Of course, the music-streaming use case is not quite what YouTube was designed for. It's a video site. It may work as a one-song-at-a-time music search engine to fill Spotify's gaps, but it's pretty poorly organized compared to existing music services. That's why Google Music is a more logical and likely home for this rumored streaming service, presumably with some cross-promotion via YouTube.

The fact that people turn to YouTube for music is something that evolved organically thanks to its user-generated nature and Google's willingness to pay licensing fees to keep the music playing. There's still plenty of copyright infringement going on, but Google is getting more aggressive about dealing with that. The RIAA may still complain, but more and more, Google is catering to copyright owners. Initiatives like this are exactly why the Plex is so eager to please the content industry.

Thanks to YouTube and the Google Music MP3 store, the company already has relationships in place with labels, songwriters and other copyright owners. But those existing partnerships aren't enough. The subscription-based streaming model is fundamentally different and requires unique, rather costly licensing deals.

Music Streaming Is About To Get Even More Crowded

If you think the music streaming space is crowded now, just wait. Deezer, a hugely popular streaming service now available in 182 countries, is in talks to launch in the U.S. sometime this year.  This summer, another much-hyped streaming service will go live, this time from Beats Audio, which acquired MOG last year.  Then there's the ongoing rumor about Apple taking aim at Pandora with an iTunes-based Internet radio product of its own.  

Exactly what Google's streaming service will look like is anybody's guess. That will depend in large part on what kind of content deals it can manage to negotiate. But the company is in a very good position to enter this space. After all, Google already has millions of streaming music users. It just needs to polish (and almost certainly rebrand) the experience and make it official with the major labels. 

Lead photo by Alexandre Normand

It's been 63 years since Nielsen started measuring what we're watching on TV. For most of that time, the concept of "TV" has  pretty much remained the same. But in the last half decade, the old model has been blown wide open by the Internet as more people go online to catch their favorite shows. To stay relevant, Nielsen is being forced to change its methodology. 

By the time the 2013 fall season begins, the 23,000 homes Nielsen uses to sample TV viewership will be equipped with a new system that takes Internet content into consideration, according to a scoop by the Hollywood Reporter. 

Piecing Together Fractured Viewing Habits

The report was short on details, but from the looks of it, Nielsen is going to start tracking select online video sources like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu as well as streaming devices like Xbox 360 and other gaming consoles. By the end of the year, TV viewership from iPads will be counted as well. That's good, considering the rising popularity of iPad apps like YouTube, Netflix and Hulu Plus and the ongoing push by cable operators and networks to make shows available on tablets. 

It's not clear which online content sources will be tracked at launch, since participating in Nielsen's ratings measurement system will require opt-in technical changes to the way those videos are encoded and streamed. 

"On the path to capturing all viewing in all homes, this foundational change addresses the lion’s share of viewing, in effect including any home with a TV that can receive video via an external source," Pat McDonough, Nielsen's SVP of Insights and Analysis told ReadWrite via email. "In collaboration with clients, we will continue to expand the reach of television audience measurement."

This isn't the first Internet-inspired change Nielsen has made to its methodology. In December, it announced a partnership with Twitter to launch a new social TV metric that will take into account the social chatter about popular shows. 

It's all part of Nielsen's larger plan to more accurately track media consumption habits that are increasingly fractured across time, devices and sources. Since the advent of TV, there's never been a change this dramatic in how people consume it. The seismic shift that's happening now calls for an equally significant retooling of how various aspects of the industry function. In a business fueled in large part by advertising, there are few moving parts more crucial than accurate audience metrics.  

Perfect Timing: Internet TV Is Growing Up 

The ratings updates come at a pivotal time for Internet TV. Online video has more than 182 million unique viewers watching 38.7 billion videos, according to ComScore's U.S. Digital Future in Focus 2013 report. The most popular video service remains YouTube, followed by Hulu, Vevo, Yahoo and AOL, in that order.

And we're not just talking about Justin Bieber songs and viral kitten videos anymore, either. In the last few years, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu have all been investing heavily in the production of their own TV-quality content. 

2012 saw a few Web original shows amass a notable amount of buzz online. This year, shows like Netflix's House of Cards are finally starting to grab the attention of everyday, non-cord-cutting viewers and generating almost as much discussion as popular shows airing on A&E or HBO. In May, Netflix will exclusively stream the fourth season of Arrested Development, a cult classic show whose low ratings got it booted from Fox a decade ago. Like House of Cards, the show is expected to draw plenty of attention, not to mention more new media pundits pontificating about the future of TV.

Online TV Ratings Could Help Fuel The Future

How many people will watch Arrested Development? We won't know, unless Netflix decides to tell us. And if it doesn't perform as well as hoped, why would it bother? The company declined to release viewership numbers for House of Cards, saying it had "no motivation" as a non-advertising based business to do so. 

That's true, but without an integrated, cross-platform method for tracking viewership, nobody inside or outside the industry has any way of knowing how popular a given show truly is. That's chiefly useful for advertisers, but such insight is valuable to plenty of others. 

There could hardly be an example more illustrative of the need for such a system than Arrested Development. The show got its start on broadcast television. As a Netflix exclusive, season four will be different only in how the episodes are released - all at once, rather than sequentially. Other than that, it will be very much the same show: Same dysfunctional family played by the same actors, presumably picking up the story line (or at least general premise) of the original. It's still a TV show, so why not measure it like one? 

As a journalist, I would love to know how well the new season does compared to the original three. Hell, I'd be curious to see how many views those first few seasons have racked up on Netflix since they've been available to stream. 

It's not just reporters, researchers and media nerds who could benefit from those insights. This is the first time a television show has made the transition to an online-only service. Will it work? Plenty of other content producers and streaming providers would love to know, and sharing such data could help inform future decisions about premium video content, potentially helping to shape TV's future.

Last week, when YouTube thought no one was looking, it apparently removed 156 million views from Lady Gaga's VEVO channel.

The removal of the views appears to be part of a broad clean up of "botted" views. Botting is the practice of artificially increasing a video's views on YouTube using automated "bots" – a practice that began in December of last year.

Spk Claims YouTube Paid Him To Inflate Views

Since the purging of botted views began this month, a man who goes by the alias of "spk" and claims to be a former YouTube employee has come forward to claim he was paid to bot videos for VEVO. This allegation is particularly controversial, as it comes on the heels of Google investing in a minority stake in VEVO.

Spk claims to have a sprawling empire of bots that inflate views on various video games such as Diablo 3 and social media services including Twitter and reddit, but he got his start on YouTube. His original views bot was so successful, spk claims, that Google approached him and asked him to bot videos for VEVO back when the music conglomerate first started putting content on YouTube.

In a Skype chat with ReadWrite, spk alleged he was originally hired as a coding and system maintenance employee for YouTube in 2007, but in 2009 was told to bot VEVO videos.

"I had to sit there and bot videos with millions and millions" of views, which he claims he did for "more than 20,000 videos."  In 2009, spk stated, he quit to start his own botting business, which he says currently employs 15 people, including the notorious botting reseller Tapangoldy. "I am doing nothing different, only working for myself now," spk said.

Evidence Of VEVO Botting

YouTube declined to commment on spk's claims of employment or botting, but a company representative did confirm that spk received a large monetary sum from Google for identifying a security risk. And spk, whose real name has been redacted upon his request, is listed on the Google Hall of Fame security site.

Whether or not spk was botting the original VEVO videos, early VEVO content shows signs of being botted. Kanye West's video Heartless, for example, gained 33 million views in one day, according to the chart below, which spk claimed he botted per YouTube's request.

Compare that to Gangnam Style, the most popular video in YouTube history, which never saw more than 3 million views a day.  

All of Britney Spear's music videos that aired before the creation of VEVO were also likely botted. The view chart below shows her 2005 hit Toxic also getting 33 million views in one 24-hour period. 

The views data for The Backstreet Boys and N'SYNC music videos shows a similar story. Lady Gaga's first hit Just Dance, which was uploaded to VEVO after the song had already made the rounds on the radio, television and pop charts, also shows signs of botting. The views removed from her VEVO channel last week were most likely taken from this video.

Why Bot VEVO Videos?

But why would YouTube want to artificially inflate views on VEVO videos. The most obvious reason would be to boost advertising rates. The VEVO channels charge the highest rates on YouTube, presumably because of the the large numbers of views they get. Another reason might be to raise the search ranking of VEVO content and help establish the channels as a music video powerhouse. Higher view counts also mean the video shows up higher in YouTube search, which increases the chance someone looking for a particular song will click on the official video release.

YouTube's view purging suggests it is no longer botting its VEVO content. Newer music videos - like those from Katy Perry, for example - show no signs of botting.

Now that Google is taking a direct financial stake in the VEVO channels, it appears that the practice of artificially inflating video views is being slowed or halted. If spk's allegations are true, though, advertisers may have paid artificially high rates for video views created by bots, not real people. 

Far from the Walk of Fame or the fabled sign, this is not Hollywood. Too far southeast from the beaches filled with silicon tech and silicone bodies, we're miles away from the beaten path. In a converted helicopter hangar once owned by Howard Hughes, step into the home of YouTube's new creative space. Could this be the new home of L.A. tech, nestled in sleepy Playa Vista? If you're into online video, and lucky enough to get access to the Google-owned facility, the answer may surprise you. 

With fresh, wide-eyed faces, collaborative accommodations, and name tags galore, the YouTube space feels more like a college campus than a production facility. But that's the point. Welcome to Day One of the inaugural incubator class. Welcome YouTubers. (Up till now, the space was used only for occasionally workshops, with the likes of Rainn Wilson and Amy Poehler.)

Through The Looking Glass

It's got a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feel that you can't shake. The 41,000-square-foot facility smells, looks and feels like money - it's backed by Google, after all, and subtle reminders and signage are everywhere. There's a 6,000-foot catwalk circling the building, a fireman's pole for quick access to the ground floor, and 2 million feet of fibre-optic cable running under the floor. 

Above the check-in desk hang 48 video screens stacked on top of each other to form a jumbotron, playing a continuous feed of video. There are arcade games in one corner of the cavernous atrium, piles of food sitting in an adjoining open kitchen. The oldest visible person can't have been born before 1980. Most look like they were hatched in the '90s. 

Everyone wears name tags, even staffers, who seem just as awed by the fancy digs as the stream of young creators who check-in and get their name badges like worker bees or students on the first day of school. Because that's what today is: Day one of the space's first incubator class.

Some 25 teams of YouTube "partners" are the first test batch of what can be legitimately dubbed the newest accelerator in town. Except this one doesn't give you any money, or claim ownership of your final product. Instead, it offers the tools to make more professional productions, and strategy to build and grow audiences-- while linking with creators on a profit share. When it comes to money, it's becomes hard to pin down just how much they share as YouTube is reticent to make numbers public.  According to online searches, partners make in the neighborhood of $2 to $5 per thousand views on their videos and about $0.01 per thousand channel views. But when asked to confirm these numbers, Google spokespeople responded that they don't make public financial details with partners. "The ad rates (are) different for many reasons, so that's not accurate. YouTube doesn't share those various rates (again that depend on many factors) publicly. The rev share is always 'majority goes to the partner' and that much is consistent and public."

Most people won't make enough to quit their day job, and critics have said that this model is exploitive. For most people, that's probably true. But not this group. These are very much the outliers, handpicked by YouTube based on audience size and diversity. 

The space's first resident, Freddie Wong, boasts more than 4.3 million subscribers and 785 million video views on his channel. There's big money on the table for Wong. And he's taking it.

YouTube is letting Freddie build a new soundstage for season two of his scripted series, Video Game High School. And it didn't even have to spend a penny. Neither did Wong. He raised the money through a Kickstarter project and private investments.

Specs

There's a a 1,500 square foot sound stage geared towards live music, a 47-seat screening room, three freshly painted green-screen rooms, an editing bay, live feed control rooms, a Next Lab to help audience development, and a "back lot" filled with rentable cameras and equipment. And there's a palpable do-it-yourself, entrepreneurial feel that pervades the entire building.

"My mom should be able to walk in here and make a YouTube video," explained Kathleen Grace, the space's manager of production and programming. 

The hours are 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week (on Sunday, they rest). 

Partner Talk With Freddie Wong

Freddie Wong slides down the fireman's pole and walks over. He sits at a long table opposite from me, adjusts his glasses, musses his long hair and apologizes for intermittent coughs. He's getting over a cold. 

Wong says online video is at a turning point. He says it's moving from short and viral to more long form, higher-production-value content. At the same time, keeping creative control and direct access to fans is pushing the medium farther and farther away from the traditional video distribution system.

The involvement of Wong with YouTube, and his distaste for the studio system, is evidence of that. "As a creator, to be able to take [content] direct to our audience is something you've never had before," Wong says.

How to bring media direct to the consumer with a fiscal model that works for both sides, is the big unanswered question. Wong admits the money side is still a work in progress, but when asked if he would take a rich deal with a big-name production company or television studio, he shakes his head emphatically. "What's actually being offered?" he questioned.

Wong says it's not all about the money, and creative control is a major factor. That's why he wants to stay in this space, with YouTube. He's predicting major gains for his upcoming new season, and his partnership with the online video giant. 

"We're kind of like the guinea pigs," he says smiling, about his four-man team. "If you can handle us, you can handle anyone."

Photos By Adam Popescu.

NOTE: This story has been updated from its original version to clarify some points about the "Birdsong" takedown in the second item.

No matter where you stand on copyright issues, it's hard to argue that the current system is working. In few places are the flaws of modern copyright law more apparent than when it comes to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests. 

Sure, plenty of legitimate DMCA are received and honored by sites like YouTube, Rapidshare and Grooveshark all the time. But every now and then we hear about a takedown notice that leaves us scratching our heads: Is that really a copyright violation? If not, why was the content removed? Is the system that easily gamed? Oh, it was a violation? How weird. 

Even the legitimate takedowns tend to lead a cat-and-mouse game and may not have a meaningful impact on the piracy they're intended to thwart, research suggests. But either way, some of the headline-grabbing copyright-related content takedowns we've seen raise major questions about the state of copyright law, the DMCA and digital piracy. 

Five prominent examples are listed below, but there are undoubtedly others. If you've heard of an outrageous Web content takedown request, let us know in the comments section.  

1. Buffy vs. Edward vs. Bogus Takedown Notices

In 2009, Jonathan McIntosh posted a video to YouTube that seemed ripe to go viral. "Buffy vs. Edward: Twightlight Remixed" riffed on two popular vampire-related entertainment franchises by cleverly mashing up scenes from both into one cohesive, six-minute video. Sound like a copyright violation? It's not. In fact, the U.S. Copyright Office cited the remix video as a shining example of fair use. 

In October 2012, McIntosh received an email from YouTube explaining that his video had been pulled due to a copyright complaint from Lionsgate Entertainment, which owns the rights to the Twilight movies. McIntosh challenged the takedown on fair use grounds and a frustrating back-and-forth between YouTube, Lionsgate and McIntosh ensued. At one point, McIntosh was even locked out of his YouTube account and forced to take lessons in copyright infringement from Google. 

As of today, Buffy vs. Edward is back online. For now. 

2. Rumblefish And Birdsong

This one was just an honest mistake and didn't actually lead to a takedown, but it still shows how things can go wrong with the current system. Somehow YouTube's Content ID system got confused and thought that the sound of a bird singing in the background of a video about a man making salad was the same thing as a song called "Birdsong" that was recorded by an artist whose songs are licensed by Rumblefish, a music licensing company, and send a "music claim" to the confused salad man. Content ID is a system that automates the process of spotting copyrighted work that's been used without permission. If your video gets flagged for copyright violation, you can dispute that, which is what the salad-maker did. Rumblefish reviewed the dispute but "mistakenly reinstated the claim," its CEO later explained. Still, the video was never actually taken down. Nevertheless, salad man made a stink in the press, and the story went viral. Two days later Rumblefish realized the mistake it had made in reinstating the claim, and released the claim. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. But to be clear: Salad man never had to take down his video; it remained up through all of this, and still is up; and no takedown notice was ever issued.

A spokesperson for Rumblefish says there were two mistakes. First, Content ID screwed up. Second, Rumblefish "did a poor job of reviewing the video manually." The issue, she says, is that there are more than 5 million videos online that use Rumblefish songs, and keeping up with so much material is a huge challenge. Bottom line: Rumblefish's CEO owned up to the error and the video remains online, but the affair raises some questions about the manageability of the copyright enforcement system. [This item has been updated from its original version.]

3. Universal Targets Pro-Megaupload Video Just Because

A few weeks before the now infamous raid that took down Megaupload and its top brass, Kim Dotcom was involved in yet another copyright-related dispute. Shortly after the music video for "Megaupload Song" was uploaded to YouTube, it was taken down due to a copyright complaint from Universal Music Group.  This was despite the fact that the song and video were original, non-infringing content. UMG apparently didn't like the fact that a video promoting Megaupload featured on-camera cameos by major label mega-stars like Kanye West, Mary J Blige, P Diddy and Will.i.am. 

4. Universal Goes Crazy Over A Prince Song

When Stepahnie Lenz uploaded a short clip of her kids dancing to "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince, the last thing she expected was a copyright takedown notice. Apparently, 26 seconds of low-quality audio was too much for Universal Music Group, which owns the copyright to Prince's catalog. The resulting legal case, Lenz v. Universal, established a precedent stating that copyright owners would need to take the parameters of fair use into consideration before issuing DMCA takedown notices. 

5. Minecraft + Gangnam Style = Copyright Violation?

Taking two things beloved by the Internet and mashing them up is often a surefire recipe for a viral video. It's also apparently an open invitation for accusations of copyright infringement. YouTube user CaptainSparklez learned this the hard way after he uploaded "Minecraft Style," a video that parodies the world's most viewed YouTube Video by merging it with the ever-popular Minecraft video game. 

After being yanked from YouTube, "Minecraft Style" returned in mid-December, only to be pulled again. The jury is still out on whether this video falls under the fair use exception to copyright law. Either way, it's hard to imagine a clever mash-up parody video eating into the massive success wrought by PSY since his bizarrely catchy song went viral. 

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Is Google about to make a move to control the distribution of music videos? Well, maybe. 

If YouTube and its corporate owner Google take a stake in music video distributor Vevo, as has been widely reported in the last 24 hours, it would be yet another sign of the tech giant's increasing interest in video content. 

All Things D reports that Google will take a minority stake in Vevo, the source of YouTube's most popular videos. The amount is expected to exceed the $35 million Google invested in Machinima, the videogame and entertainment distribution network, back in May 2012. According to the Guardian, the investment could amount to as much as $67 million.

If it happens, the deal will solidify a shaky, three-year relationship. Vevo is a top traffic driver on YouTube, the largest video site on the Web and second-most-popular video search engine. Vevo, a joint venture between Universal Music, Sony Music and Abu Dhabi Media, threatened to remove its videos from YouTube last July unless Google's YouTube fees were lowered, and even went so far as to pursue publishing arrangements with Viacom's MTV and Facebook.

While YouTube did not respond to requests for comment, the deal would guarantee that Vevo stays put on Google's video service, which should keep the music videos flowing. That's a good thing. No one wants to spend their time watching music videos through Facebook's wonky video player.  

Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Making a living on YouTube is a tough business. It takes real entrepreneurial spirit. Most YouTubers make money wherever they can: from the ads that run on their mostly homemade videos and merchandise (like bobble head dolls).

The big news is that few of the more intrepid YouTubers are making real money by taking their acts beyond of the virtual world and onto physical stages.  And they're actually selling out big concert halls.

The latest case in point: John and Hank Green of the Vlog Brothers' sold-out show at Carnegie Hall last Tuesday night. It drew the kind of crowd that many an indie band would blow up a drummer for. So much so that it caught the attention of the The New York Times. 

Let's hope the Greens possess an "any publicity is good publicity" attitude. The Times described their Carnegie Hall performance as “a goofy variety show” with the “the polish of a really good high school talent night.” (The show, which featured live readings, skits and a few musical numbers, can be viewed here.)

YouTubers In The Real World

John and Hank Green are by no means the first YouTube act to find an audience in the real world. A little more than a year ago, YTF, YouTubers Ryan Higa and six friends - including one American Idol contestant - sold out a concert hall in Hawaii. Higa and company, regularly creating some of YouTube's most popular videos, were given star treatment complete with fawning interviews in the local press, and a “YTF day” declared by the state's governor in honor of the group's show.

Early last year, seven YouTubers including four musicians and popular Web skit writers MeekaKitty, Nanalew and LiveLavaLive, went on a full-blown tour of the United States. I saw their variety show at House of Blues in Chicago, along with a couple hundred or so screaming teens and 20-somethings. Their parents may not get it, but they did.

Photo courtesy of YouTube.

2012 was a very good year for SoundCloud. The social music and audio-hosting platform saw a massive uptick in user activity, according to data released by music analytics firm Next Big Sound. 

The State of Online Music report contains some big, but not altogether unexpected numbers: More people are listening to music online and artists saw more activity on Twitter and Facebook than they did in 2011. Across a variety of online sources, the Play button was clicked more than 93 billion times, a 45% increase over 2011. Pretty impressive, to be sure, but not a total shocker. 

Triple Play

Perhaps the most striking chart contained in Next Big Sound's interactive report is the one showing how SoundCloud's user activity tripling over the course of 2012. The service was already enjoying healthy year-over-year growth throughout 2012. Then in September, it saw a massive jump in monthly plays per artist, and the trend line kept shooting north until the end of December. Of the music services tracked by Next Big Sound, it was far and away the fastest growing. 

What gives?

The service's growth was probably aided by a major website overhaul, which put more focus on user engagement with continuous track-by-track playback and added more social functionality, such as a retweet-style sharing button designed to help audio content spread across the service. 

SoundCloud's redesign may have been the company's biggest project of 2012, but it didn't eat up all of the team's time. They also managed to push out major updates to most of their mobile apps, forge a ton of new content partnerships and convert the service's default player to HTML5.

Fueled by a few hefty rounds of funding, these initiatives no doubt helped SoundCloud better position itself as a sort of "YouTube for audio." The goal, in the company's own marketing speak, is to "unmute the Web." 

YouTube Still Rules

YouTube itself was another enormous source of online music last year. It didn't see  spikes as dramatic as SoundCloud's, but for most of the year, the video behemoth delivered more than 20,000 average monthly views per artist, in some months quadrupling what artists saw the previous year. 

Indeed, YouTube remains a much bigger source of music than SoundCloud, but the growth of the Berlin-based startup  is remarkable enough to make it serious contender in the online music space. 

Don't call it a Spotify killer either. For whatever reason, Next Big Sound's report doesn't include data from the dominant subscription service, but regardless of what the numbers say, the two companies' models are very different.

The Independent Alternative

For one, SoundCloud doesn't have to contend with the gargantuan music licensing costs that subscription services like Rdio and Spotify do. Whereas those services boast content deals with all the major labels and big indies, SoundCloud has a much larger selection of unsigned, under-the-radar musicians, remix artists and DJs. Indeed, about two-thirds of SoundCloud's fan activity in 2012 was centered around independent and unsigned artists.

What will ultimately become of SoundCloud? It's tempting to envision it getting gobbled up some Web giant like Google, but for now it's focused on building out a massive trove of content, weaving it all into the Web and making it easier to share. The "YouTube for audio" analogy looks increasingly apt, especially if its metrics continue to shoot skyward. 

Top YouTuber Ray William Johnson has been dethroned as the most popular YouTuber by Smosh, the manic comedy duo comprised of Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla.  It took 6.8 million subscribers grab the crown, which Smosh achieved over the weekend.

Skewing Younger!

The secret to Smosh's success? Make content for viewers under 18. 

Like every YouTube act that has owned the coveted #1 spot, Smosh's YouTube content is decidedly aimed at a younger teen and tween audience. 

Johnson, who riffs jokes on viral videos pre-Tosh.0 and also runs the popular animated channel Your Favorite Martian, has held the title of most-subscribed YouTuber since June 28, 2011.  Johnson’s content is less teen friendly than that of Smosh or Asian vlogger Ryan Higa (Higa held the top YouTube spot before Johnson) but his audience is still decidedly underage.  

Reclaiming Their Throne

Smosh’s ascent to the top is actually a reclaiming of the throne -  the duo held the #1 spot back in 2006, before YouTube became the do-it-yourself micro-Hollywood it is today.

“[C]ongrats to SMOSH for being #1 on youtube” tweeted longtime YouTuber Shane Dawson over the weekend. “[T]hey prove that being a youtuber doesn’t mean you have a short shelf life & thats very inspiring!"

Besides their signature channel Smosh, which averages 4 million views per video (be it a skit or them joking while driving), the 25-year-old Hecox and Padilla operate seven other YouTube channels including the insanely fast-growing Smosh Games (focused on - you guess it - video games), the news and entertainment show SmoshPit Weekly, El Smosh, which is SmoshPit Weekly in Spanish, and Shut Up! Cartoons, which was partially funded by Google as part of its original content initiative. The duo even has their own bobble-head dolls - so you know they must be big time.

Padilla began building Smosh'a new-media empire back in 2002 with the creation of Smosh.com, a Huffington Post-style aggregator of funny Internet stuff. The first video featuring the duo hit YouTube in 2005 and happened to be a lip dub of the Pokemon theme song Gotta Catch ‘Em All. It went viral, with 24 million views (which was huge in 2005) before it was removed for “copyright infringement.”

It's All About The Underwear

Part of Padilla and Hecox’s long standing success on YouTube - besides making content for minors - is heavily related to how they pander to young teen girls, aka fangirls. (Higa and Shane Dawson also appeal to this demographic.) The YouTube community often reacts negatively to women and girls who flaunt their sex appeal, but seems to approve of men dancing around topless in their briefs.

At last year’s unofficial YouTuber's conference - VidCon - Padilla and Hecox’s booth featured them in their underwear. The crowd of girls they attracted was in serious danger of hyperventilating. 

Despite corporate YouTube’s best efforts, viewers under 18 still rule the video-sharing site, relying on it not just for entertainment and music, but for news as well.  Hence, Smosh's dominance.  

Smosh was acquired by new media network Alloy Digital in 2011.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

(This story has been updated to reflect additional comments Microsoft's Dave Heiner made Thursday night.)

Even as the Federal Trade Commission ends its two-year investigation of Google with a whimper, Microsoft is desperately hoping that the war isn't yet over. The latest battleground: the YouTube app for Windows Phone.

In a blog post on Thursday night, Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel from Microsoft, expressed his disappointment in the ruling, complaining that the FTC missed the boat on issues of data portability, standard-essential patents, and other issues that include search bias.

On the face of it, whether or not Google should be obligated to license Microsoft the API technology necessary to build a Windows Phone app to access Google's YouTube video service seems relatively trivial. In a blog post, Microsoft said that Google has unreasonably blocked access to the necessary APIs, preventing it from doing so. Google already supplies a YouTube "app," which is merely an HTML5 version of its website, which runs inside the Internet Explorer browser on the phone.

For its part, Google believes that's more than enough. “Contrary to Microsoft’s claims, it’s easy for consumers to view YouTube videos on Windows phones," a YouTube spokeswoman wrote in an email. "Windows phone users can access all the features of YouTube through our HTML5-based mobile website, including viewing high-quality video streams, finding favorite videos, seeing video ratings, and searching for video categories.  In fact, we’ve worked with Microsoft for several years to help build a great YouTube experience on Windows phones.”

The problem, according to Microsoft, is that Google's behavior with regard to Windows Phone YouTube app is emblematic of its behavior in general. Two years ago, Microsoft complained to the European Union about Google's tactics, as well as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. (Longtime Microsoft watchers have long noted the irony of Microsoft complaining about anti-competitive actions, given the company's issues with the U.S. Department of Justice, and the possibility that the EU may impose fines or other sanctions after Microsoft ignored the browser choice restrictions from a previous EU settlement.)

But now the FTC has ended its Google investigation with a slap on the wrist, Microsoft can't seem to give up the fight: Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel from Microsoft said Wednesday that the YouTube app dispute is simply a representative example of the "misconduct" that Google has employed with respect to its practices on the Internet. "Just last month, we learned from YouTube that senior executives at Google told them not to enable a first-class YouTube experience on Windows Phones," Heiner wrote.

"Google often says that the antitrust offenses with which it has been charged cause no harm to consumers," Heiner added. "Google is wrong about that. In this instance, for example, Google’s refusal deprives consumers who use competing platforms of a comparable experience in accessing content that is generally available on the Web, almost all of which is created by users rather than by Google itself. And it’s inconsistent, to say the least, with Google’s public insistence that other competing services, such as Facebook, should offer Google complete access to their content so they can index and include it on their search site."

In his midnight post Thursday night, Heiner claimed that Google "inexplicably has not promised to allow all advertisers to port their campaign data to other ad platforms—only those with a primary billing address in the United States".

Microsoft also characterized the FTC's ruling on the so-called FRAND patent issues ineffective. Motorola Mobility, which was acquired by Google last year, has embroiled itself in a string of lawsuits, seeking to coerce royalties for patents used in developing standards like Wi-Fi. Heiner claimed that the FTC's lukewarm requirements, full of legal loopholes, would allow Google to continue its anti-competitive behavior.

"During patent licensing negotiations, Google can continue to threaten that it will sue for an injunction, knowing that many would-be licensees will not be in a position to engage in litigation or arbitration with Google and also meet all of the other procedural requirements set forth in the decree that are imposed on the licensee," Heiner wrote. "Google can even continue to use its standard essential patents to fend off patent infringement actions against it: the proposed decree gives Google leeway to sue for an injunction on its standard essential patents if it takes the position that injunctive relief sought against it is based on a patent that is standard essential."

Now that the FTC has made its ruling, those concerns may be moot. But Microsoft made several references to behavior overseas, an indication that it may be seeking to tacitly plead its case before the European Union - which some now see as the "hard man" of international antitrust law. Whatever the situation, it's clear that Microsoft has no intention of giving up its fight against Google.

See also Google Escapes Unscathed From FTC Settlement and Google's FTC Settlement Is An Epic Fail For Microsoft.

T’is the end of the year and all across YouTube, videos - primarily music- are being scrubbed clean of fraudulent views. Except one set of channels. VEVO, the one with a special partnership with YouTube, has remained untouched. Obvious VEVO power-play much, YouTube?

YouTube has long had issues with botting - the practice of paying for fake views, much in the same way people buy fake Facebook likes or fake Twitter followers. In a bold move before the Christmas holiday, the Google-owned site stripped billions of views from the channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and RCA Records. Hundreds of examples of music-related content were removed as well.  

Tallying Up The Fake Views

The music channel with the most fraudulent views removed was Universal Music Group, with the tally coming out to just over 1 billion (1,015,813,000), according to third-party analytics site SocialBlade. Sony BMG lost a little over 850 million views, while the RCA channel dropped 159 million.

As first reported by the Daily Dot, this year-end cleaning of fake views also hit hundreds of other non-musical YouTubers, which led many to wonder in related Google forums whether this was the work of a bug. In a forum post, YouTube confirmed users had violated the Terms of Service item 4 section H, which states: “You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots."

YouTube did not respond to the Daily Dot’s requests for comment on the removal of views and videos from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and RCA Records, nor did they respond to ReadWrite’s. Tech blog Tom’s Guide however, got a confirmation from Google that the music channels had indeed violated the ToS. 

Claims Of Bias

Netherlands-based web celebrity and gamer Athene Wins - who is a bit of a YouTube watchdog - called the take-down of fake views from certain channels “biased”  in a vlog addressing Daily Dot’s article, given that he believes botting has also occurred on VEVO channels.  

“They’re just making sure all big labels and artists are forced to go with VEVO,” says Athene Wins, who points out Chris Brown and Britney Spears VEVO channels were untouched as far as the removal of botted views.  

“Don’t tell me that you are going to be botting views for Chris Brown TV” but you “stop botting” at Chris Brown’s VEVO,” he added.

The removal of botted views on only certain music channels does look suspicious, but the comment the Daily Dot received from Universal confirmed they have been focusing on pushing content into their VEVO channel, instead of their original YouTube channel. VEVO, after all, charges very high ad rates.  

It is also possible that the millions of fake views on Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and RCA Records was done to make channels appear more popular than they were, since they were created in 2006, before the music video conglomerate VEVO (which includes Universal, Sony BMG and RCA Records talent) launched in 2009. Reddit, for example, relied on fake users to make the site appear more popular than it was, when it first started out.  

YouTube's funneling music into one central distributing network, VEVO, also makes sense for simplicity, as all music on the site can then be under one umbrella. This re-organizing of music content also means VEVO is staying on YouTube; back in July VEVO threatened to leave the Google-owned video sharing site unless they lowered their fees.

Keeping the botted views on VEVO (if they do in fact, exist), then, makes sense from a business investment standpoint. Inflating the VEVO traffic keeps a nice justification going for those VEVO channels' high ad rates, all the better for everyone's bottom line.

If you were expecting the Internet to upend TV like it mangled the print media business, you may have noticed by now that things aren't so simple. 

The Web is very good at delivering text and static images, but when it comes to TV-quality video content, it turns out that cable providers are still much better at that. Internet TV has two serious handicaps: content and the user interface. In 2012, the status quo crept forward in both areas, albeit slowly. Next year, TV will continue its gradual evolution toward something completely different from what we grew up with. 

Social TV Grows Up 

The term "social TV" has bounced around tech blogs and media conference halls for a few years now. Next year, the intersection between TV and social media will mature beyond stats and fads and evolve into something that makes a real impact on viewers and show producers alike. 

The most telling sign that social TV is coming of age arrived just before the close of 2012, when Nielsen announced the first official Twitter-based rating system. It's not every day a technological force comes along that causes Nielsen to change what it's been doing since the 1950s. But research has shown that social chatter about TV shows actually correlates with ratings and Twitter itself has been taking its role in television more seriously through media partnerships and launching promotional campaigns for new shows. 

The concept of the second screen, where additional content can be viewed on a tablet or smartphone, will also evolve in 2013. Nearly 90% of tablet owners use them while they watch TV, but content companies and app developers have had a hard time figuring out exactly how to capitalize on this. Apps like Zeebox and iTV are well-positioned to serve as digital companions to TV viewers, while services like GetGlue and Miso will evolve past the social check-in and move toward content discovery. 

Meanwhile, we'll see more social media-fueled content discovery. Personalized "Flipboard-for-video" apps like Showyou, Frequency and Vodio are already changing the way early adopters find and consume Web video and technologies like Apple's AirPlay puts those socially-curated, lean-back video experiences on the TV. Expect to see this category mature in 2013 as new users flock to these apps. 

Apple Advances The Internet TV Interface 

Whether you're an Apple fan or not, it's hard to deny the sizable impact they tend to have on most markets they enter. Next year, television will go from being the "hobby" Steve Jobs talked about to an "area of intense interest" for Tim Cook and Apple's executive team. 

Apple's HDTV won't sell at a rate comparable to the iPad's explosion. Any expectation to the contrary would be silly, considering Apple is entering a well-established market, not inventing a new one. Whatever they come up with, it will set a new standard for how Internet-based video content is displayed on a TV screen and crucially, how that content integrates with tried-and-true TV programming from traditional providers. 

Internet TV's Original Programming Revolution

Original, Web-first TV programming from Internet companies was a big trend in 2012. Hulu, Netflix and YouTube all made major investments in original content, with each one experimenting with Web-only TV shows. Google has already begun weeding out the weakest offerings in an effort to fine-tune its TV-style content offering. 

The biggest test for the viability of Internet-only TV content will come next year when Arrested Development returns not to the Fox network on which it originally aired, but exclusively to Netflix. This will be the first time a popular show makes the transition from broadcast to Internet-only distribution. Will the new season live up to months of eager hype? How well will the one-season-at-a-time release schedule of Netflix work compared to the staggered airing of a real TV show? Will Netflix see a bump in sign-ups? 

The success of Arrested Development's new season will influence future decisions about Internet TV content, especially when it comes to beloved but off-the-air shows. If Netflix scores a big hit with the Bluth family, expect Hulu and YouTube to try and emulate its success. 

Remote 2.0: The Evolution of User Controls 

As imperfect as the user interface is for Internet TV, traditional television and cable set-ups aren't exactly known for their ease-of-use. Just ask my mother when she's faced with a coffee table full of remote controls. 

Apple will likely lead the charge here, but either way, expect the way we interact with TV content to get simplified. Fewer buttons and a more intuitive design are coming to a remote control near you, while on-screen menus get some polish of their own. One company experimenting with simplified remote control design is Bose, whose VideoWave entertainment system has a remote that sports a touch pad and six buttons, shifting most of the commonly-used buttons to the TV screen itself. The remote works with just about any external device, from Blu Ray players and XBox 360 to Roku and Apple TV. 

TV interface controls will also expand beyond pointing a remote control at the screen. In the future, we'll interact with TV content using our voices and gesture-based controls. We're already seeing a glimpse of how this will work thanks to the Kinect on XBox, the iPad and the various Siri hacks developers have created. Indeed, the inclusion of Siri is one of the most frequently-mentioned features of the rumored Apple HDTV. Meanwhile, Google has been baking its ever-more-effective voice search into more of its mobile apps. 

The Convergence of Mobile and Television

In 2013, expect your TV to look more like your smartphone. The convergence of television and mobile platforms will continue next year, as TV software designers rethink the user interface and AirPlay-style functionality grows more mainstream. 

As mobile video apps mature and consumers get used to the idea of wirelessly beaming their tablets to their TVs, the line between mobile and TV will blur. Ease-of-use is key here. Hassle-free connectivity of the sort offered by Apple's AirPlay will enable even the least tech-savvy consumers to connect their tablets to their TVs. 

The couch is already where tablets get used the most, according to research conducted by Google. And watching video is already one of the most popular activities for which people use their tablets, according to Google, the Online Publishers Association and just about everybody else who's studied tablet usage behavior. The only missing link was the wireless beaming technology now provided by Apple's AirPlay and an eventual Google equivalent. Adoption of that feature is dependent on the growth of set-top streaming boxes or, better yet, connected TVs.

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

Sometime last Friday, Gangnam Style made YouTube history - yet again - by reaching one billion total views. The march to this digital milestone hasn't been quiet: it's been surrounded with hysterical speculation about what the video's incredible popularity “all means for society.”  

I am here to tell you that everything is going to be okay. Society is still fine, and Psy’s one billion views on Gangnam Style is not a sign of the Apocalypse as many feared last week. Nor is it a sign our society is turning into “Idiocracy” or drugs and meaningless babble, as Bill O’Reilly suggested last month.

Gangnam Style and its success is simply a byproduct of our interconnected digital world as told through video, digital culture in the form of memes and GIFs, and last but not least, how music now spreads in the form of YouTube videos. 

Parodies Pay The Bills 

As a music video, Gangnam Style is colorful, irreverent and awe-inspiring in its wackiness. Like any good viral video, Gangnam Style put bread on the table for do-it-yourself YouTube content creators in the form of countless parodies and mashups  - some of these collected a million views on their own, earning their creators a pretty penny.  A good parody video is the YouTube equivalent of movie review or essay by an esteemed writer, if you will, and the sheer number of parodies is a good gauge of how effectively the original video captured the cultural zeitgeist.  

Put another way, YouTubers love doing videos about Gangnam Style because it makes them money, and parodies and mashup videos feed the hype machine. 

That Absurd Global Culture 

The images in Psy's music video feel familiar to Western audiences; the little kid dancing like Michael Jackson, sexy ladies doing yoga and all the references to Hollywood movie tropes like walking into the wind or away from explosions. This familiarity simply means we now have a shared, global culture - one that Gangnam Style was able to reference with an appropriate level of absurdity. You can laugh both at Psy and with Psy. 

Despite this familiarity, though, Gangnam Style still maintains a certain exoticism, which is a good thing to non-Koreans. Sharing a good music video with your friends is one thing, but sharing a popular music video from another country?  You're now "worldly." 

Singing In Korean: An International Novelty 

In fact, Gangnam Style's "Koreanness" likely helped its spread; the video required decoding and gave those that understood the secret meanings a bit of a superiority complex. It was no accident The Atlantic's "Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation" is one of the most popular posts on the site, referenced by almost anyone writing seriously about Gangnam Style.    

For people not interested in decoding "Gangnam Style," the foreign language lets listeners project whatever they want onto the song, again broadening the appeal. And don't forget the explosion of K-pop in Western cultures. 

You're so GIF-able!

“Time [Magazine] needs to switch from "Person Of The Year" to "GIF Of The Year" to stay relevant,” tweeted Media Matters Simon Maloy a few days ago, and he has a point. 2012 was the year of the GIF, and Gangnam Style was incredibly GIFable. It's hard to say which there are more of, Gangnam Style parody videos, or Gangnam Style GIFs? Either way, GIFS have become the go-to form of expression among many Internet users. 

The Dance  

Remember the Macarena? It swept the globe in the mid-90's and is still a crowdpleaser at weddings. Gangnam Style is just like that, except instead of multiple steps, you ride an invisible horse and occasionally attempt to lasso the air. Its inherent ridiculousness makes people laugh and have a good time doing it. 

by Hugo A Sanchez. Learn about data visualization tools.

YouTube: The Poor Man's Juke Box

Back in August, media outlets were shocked to learn that two-thirds of teens in the United States use YouTube as their primary method of listening to and discovering new music, primarily because it is free.  Many people no longer purchase music, they just play the songs they want to hear through YouTube. Music is the dominant traffic driver to YouTube, as brand and marketing analytics company ChannelMeter kindly displays in the pie chart below.

Finally, remember what Gangnam Style topped to become the most viewed video; Justin Bieber's Baby. Baby had so many views because tween girls were slapping the "repeat" button over and over again. People were also hitting that button for Gangnam Style. At least I was, as I was not about to pay money to listen to it. 

Gangnam Style is not unique. Look for its YouTube record to be broken soon enough by another musician, with another catchy pop song and dance. That's the YouTube way.