youtube

Where else would we find all those funny videos featuring people getting hit in the crotch? And that is, in fact, the source of a fair amount of YouTube's traffic, according to WebProNews. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like my day is complete without watching a cat fall off a TV, seeing people dancing on treadmills, and such.

YouTube is the new central repository for crotch-smashing, according to the article:… Read more

New research from the mobile-focused statistics firm M:Metrics has focused on exactly how many mobile-phone customers are using their handsets to access social networks and blogs, and the results aren't particularly surprising: not a whole lot of people are.

In the month of June, a total of only 12.3 million mobile consumers in the United States and Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) accessed a social-networking site or blog on their phones at least once. In the U.K., this came out to a total of only 2.5 percent of mobile users; … Read more

Let's see how funny Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on the witness stand.

The two comedians are apparently being dragged into the copyright fight between their employer and Google. Entertainment conglomerate Viacom, the company behind Stewart's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google earlier in the year, alleging that Google and YouTube encourage users to pirate copyright material.

The two companies entered the names of people they each wish to depose in court, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last … Read more

For a while there, the fate of the Republican counterpart to last month's CNN-YouTube debates among Democratic presidential contenders was looking pretty bleak. But it appears that the event in St. Petersburg, Fla., will, indeed take place--albeit a few months later than planned.

CNN and YouTube on Monday issued a brief press release announcing that the candidates will be invited to take the Mahaffey Theatre's stage on November 28. As of Sunday night, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani had agreed to show up for the post-Thanksgiving event, but there was no immediate word on the others, a CNN … Read more

reporter's notebook I've done a lot of risky things as a reporter over the years. I've knocked on doors in the sketchiest of crime-ridden neighborhoods, done midair flips with an acclaimed stunt pilot, and even let Lorena Bobbitt--famous for cutting off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife--give me a manicure using sharp instruments.

But no assignment scared me as much as asking Web fashionista William Sledd to critique the way I dress.

I'd been working on a profile about Sledd, 23, the former Gap manager from Paducah, Ky., who has become an online celebrity … Read more

Apple's iWeb, one part of the iLife consumer apps suite, has received an interesting update this morning. iWeb is Apple's consumer-level Web site creation tool, and it gives users a simple way to drag and drop various Web site elements as well as fill in the included templates. The latest version is getting integration with two of Google's services: AdSense and Google Maps. iWeb users can now sign up for AdSense right inside the application, and pick how they want it to show up on their site. From the looks of the screenshots, it's much easier … Read more

.Mac, the popular Web services suite from Apple is getting an update this morning. Among the newer features is a much-needed upgrade to .Mac's Web photo gallery service, which now ties in with the freshly updated iPhoto '08 and the iPhone. Users will also be able to upload photos to their online galleries via a specialized e-mail address. The new iPhone integration mirrors some of the options that are already in place to shuttle off photos from the device, with a new option to "send to Web gallery," which lets you send photos to their.Mac Web … Read more

There's a new social network/video discovery service on the way. It's name is Knocka.TV, and I've got to hand it to them--the service isn't even open to the public yet, and there's already a play reel of nearly 30 video clips on the landing page that make it look like a lot of fun. It looks like a hybrid of Joost, StumbleUpon, and YouTube, with some TV-like qualities such as timeslots and user-controlled programming (akin to MTV's Total Request Live and Direct Connect). There could also be a social networking component with … Read more

Bob Tur, the chopper-piloting journalist who was first to file a copyright lawsuit against YouTube, will join a class action suit that is led by England's Premier Soccer League.

Tur, who has accused YouTube of encouraging users to pirate copyright material, is dropping his individual suit against the company.

"I carried the ball against YouTube for a year now," Tur said in a statement. "After careful analysis and consideration, I have concluded that the (Premier League) class action is the most effective way for independent copyright holders to secure the judicial remedies that I am seeking.&… Read more