Andy’s Blog

You Tube is seen by many as the best website on the internet. It provides people with a platform to show there film creating talents to the world. Spend a few minutes browsing around and you can find videos of a “Talking Cat” or someone’s sporting accomplishments captured on film for the world to see.

As highlited in a recent BBC Panorama Programme entitled “Children’s Fight Club” there is also a  growing trend of people adding very disturbing video’s to Youtube.

Whilst browsing around youtube its not long before you stumble across Video’s showing school children being bullied and psyically assulted by their own class mates. The attackers then place these videos on the internet for the world to see.Not only does the victim have to suffer the physical attacks but then they have the face the fact that the videos taken by their attackers will be on the internet, where they or their family and friends may see them.

Who’s responsibility is it to remove these videos?

YouTube’s Spokesperson Rachel Whetstone Says that it is the responsibility of the user community to decide wether these types of videos are innapropriate.

To me that sounds like passing the book, if I was to host similar videos on this blog then that would be my responsibility and you could almost gaurantee that I would be before a judge explaining my actions pretty quickly.

So how do Youtube and site similar get away with it? Surely there are laws preventing the distribution of video depicting criminal acts.

 Will Youtube moderate the content uploaded to their site, probably not, it would take a lot of people and money to police such a vast quantity of content. But then again the Parent company Google surely could afford this and I am sure that the ammount of money the site is making from advertising would more than cover the cost.

I personally feel that sites like these have a moral if not legal obligation to ensure that these videos are deleted, but until then I guess it is down to the Community to Mark the videos as innapropriate, that or find an alternative site for sharing videos.

Jessica Luthi CEO AffiliateProgramAdvice.com has compiled a very well written open letter to Youtube regarding this matter.

The Panorama Show is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6920000/newsid_6923900/6923914.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6921555.stm

I’ve been too busy this week to do any real work, why? as the title says, I’m getting Married :D.

 It’s a rare occasion for several reasons, obviously you dont get married every day, so that is the main thing but, I also have a whole day, yep 24 hours, off work, its unheard of and im not sure how I’ll manage(which is why im getting my internet fix this morning).

The scariest thing of all though, is the fact that I’ll be wearing a suit. Shock Horror.

So this will be my last post as a Free man, No longer will I be able to put single or co-habiting on surveys or forms.

 wish me luck. lol

Outsourcing work for websites had never been something I had done, until recently.

Why? because I like to do everything myself, and to be honest I like to be in control.

In reality doing everything yourself may not always be practical or possible.

Say you had an excellent idea for a site but the main part involved a Flash application. Thats fine if you are familiar with Flash and can achieve what you need.

But if you’re not then you’ve got a lot of learning to do, theres the Graphics side of things, the action-scripting, sounds, security, testing. Thats a lot of learning and a lot of time.

Even if you have a little bit of knowledge chances are it will take quite a while to acheive the results you need.

Why bother? if its a one off project using a particular technology then Outsource it. You’ll save a lot of hair, time, and ultimately money.

While the works been done you could be setting up PPC campaigns ready, doing another site, creating content or relaxing down the pub.

Obviously outsourcing has its downfalls, your relying on someone else to get the job done, it might not be right etc.

You need to ensure that you explain fully what you need(after a non disclosure of course), the time-frame, and the budget, you then need to agree costs for extra works and possibly penalties or bonuses based on the deadlines, and if possible have any programing commented for when/if you do want to learn.

There are several sites available for hiring people for this sort of project, they all have some sort of buyer and seller protection, but the best thing in my opinion is to get recommendations from reliable sources. You all use forums, ask there, I did and found a diamond of a coder(I would mention names but i’d rather not as I don’t want him to be to busy for any future projects ).

So I am now happy to outsource some work it’s saving me time, stress and gives me time to concentrate on other projects.