Youtube on mobile

Ah the dreaded "The content owner has not made this video available on mobile" error from youtube on Android and presumably iOS and/or Win7 mobile, although I don't have a way to test that. I'm not sure why people wouldn't check the box to make a video available on mobile, but it happens enough that it's annoying. I know there are ways around it, sometimes, but just because there are workarounds, that doesn't mean it isn't stupid. Sometimes viewing it in desktop mode through the browser will fix it, sometimes you have to use a third party browser such as Dolphin or Firefox, etc, and sometimes it just doesn't work for me at all. It's really annoying if you chose the youtube app as your default app to open youtube links, since you have to find the app in settings>apps>installed, and clear the default, and then chose a different browser to open it in.

If you make a video and upload it on to Youtube, I assume you do that in order for people to watch it. Why would you care if I'm watching it on my Android phone, on a tablet, on a laptop, or from the future with my mind, as long as I'm watching it? If you don't want me to watch it, don't upload it publicly onto Youtube. It gets really stupid when I can't watch a youtube video on my wifi only tablet that never leaves my house, but I can watch it on my 3G chromebook that I actually take with me to work and back daily!

So you may be wondering why I'm posting this here on this Google reviewed blog, if its something that the users are doing. I'm sure that the button was implemented because of some sort of copyright bullshit, but it's a ridiculous practice. There shouldn't even be a button to make it unavailable on mobile in the first place. It should all be available on any device you want to access it from. If I can watch it on my computer, then I should be able to watch it on my pocket computer without having to jump through any hoops.

Google Music: music recognition, music tagging and Youtube Integration

In order to beat AmazonMP3 and iTunes Google Music has to be 10x better. To reach that level they must integrate the music features of Search, Play, Shopper and Youtube. Starting with the integration of their music recognition technology across their services, having cross links from Youtube to Play and leveraging their cloud to help folks build Youtube Music Video playlists and  track wishlists.

While Google has music recognition tools built into several of their services not all of the services use the recognition function as one would expect, not all of the examples of its utilization are implemented in a manner that necessarily takes full advantage of the Google Plus “Social Spine”, nor does it have a music search history of a user’s music recognition activities. The most prominent examples of Google’s use of music recognition is in Youtube’s video upload feature, in the Google Music web app that creates an “instant mix”. There is also a music recognition widget in the Jelly Bean called “What’s that Song?”.

When Uploading a video Youtube will detect the music that you have laid over the video and oftentimes recommend its own higher quality version. This means that Google could offer sales in the Google Play store of that music found in Youtube videos by giving a direct link to the purchase on the same page as the video. Think “Like this song? Click here to buy it on Google Play!”. Furthermore, if a user does not feel that it is time to purchase the track, they should be able to “tag” it for purchase later from Youtube into a tagged music list that holds tags from all of Google’s music services.

Google Music (My Google Play Music), Google’s cloud based Music locker, has what Google calls an “instant mix” feature. Select “crete mix” from any given track’s context menu in your music list. It then builds a twenty five track mix of similar tracks from your uploaded and purchased music. Presumably it does this using music recognition software. If this is true one would expect it to be capable of providing the tracks metadata (Album, album cover, year, track number, artist, and label), however, the “Edit Track Information” option from the track and album context menus do not possess a “get album/track information from internet” option. Furthermore, since it is obvious that both Youtube and Google Music locker have music recognition functionality why can’t Youtube build an instant mix of similar music videos for the user based on a selection of videos that users have identified like My Google Play Music creates the instant mix from a selected track? Along the same line of thought, Google Music also offers the ability to share a Youtube video of a track from your music locker. It gives a web-app menu that displays Youtube search results for potentially similar songs. However, this feature also does not use the Music recognition technology that is in both services. It searches Youtube with the track’s current Metadata, meaning that if your song's title is listed, in your Google Music locker, as unknown, then it searches Youtube Music for “Unknown”...fail.

The new version of Android, 4.1 Jelly Bean, has an associated widget called “What’s that Song?”. This widget can be used to identify songs that are apart of the ambient noise in the presence of the phone or tablet. Despite the fact that this is a neat widget, it's not ten times better than the two previous standard apps used for this. Soundhound and Shazam both recognize music at least as good as Google’s new widget but, they both offer the ability to tag music for purchase later and share them through a variety of methods including email and social media directly from the app. The Play store has a native option to share the media once you arrive at it but its not native in the interface of the widget. Its sounds shallow, but its too many clicks to get to the share option...it and a tagging function have to be right next to the result.

Music results in Google Search come back in an awkward fashion. Youtube on top (this works and makes sense from a business perspective), then Wikipedia, then lyrics listings, and then web radio sites. So, some of you might recall that there was the coolest feature ever several years back in Google Search...Google Music Search, it gave users music results from across the web including MySpace, Lala and Amazon with the ability to stream samples in most cases and sometimes full versions right from the results page. One day, unannounced and without ceremony, Google Music Search was shot in the head and buried under the toilet in building 8 at the Mountain View campus. It strikes me as odd that results from the Google Play Music store are not included in the Google Search results for a [Van Halen Jump] search. Google owns an online music store called Google Play Music, wouldn’t Google Search results with links to listen to samples kinda make sense from a business perspective, and be a really intuitive feature for users?

The real shortcoming of Google’s Music services right now, in my opinion, is the lack of a native track tagging feature and a auto-update metadata feature. Both of which are functions that are obvious extensions of Google’s current capabilities. How that tagging function could hypothetically work could be presented in multiple ways. It could be linked to the Google Bookmarks service (take note that I am not talking about Chrome bookmarks Sync here), it could be a wish list or shopping list found in Google Shopping Lists or Google Play, and it could be a samples playlist built into Google Music basing the functionality on the samples from Google Books but using Youtube’s Licensing to provide the samples. Finally, returning to the now defunct Google Music Search. Google knows a lot of stuff and now regularly presents that knowledge to searchers at the top of the results in black unlinked text. I am not making a judgment about how easy this would be but, in order to be 10x better than the two current online champions, iTunes and AmazonMP3, Google Music needs to offer features like song lyrics as known information at the top of the results for songs and as a visualization in both the Android app and the web app.

Google has a lot of cool features for music purchasing and discovery throughout its varied services, but in their current format Google does not beat AmazonMP3 and iTunes. Each day that goes by that these features continue to not synergize, the distance that Google has to cover, to catch up, increases. In order to cause people to switch from their old service Google’s music services and features need to be 10x better. If they can synchronize the efforts of Search, Youtube, Play and Shopper in an intuitive manner they might have the critical mass they need to start winning...assuming of course that they get more music in the Play store...which is another problem entirely, for another post.

Watching Google Play Movies on GoogleTV...HAH!

     I own a 46” Sony GoogleTV (hereafter referred to as GTV). I bought it less than a week after they were available in the Fall of 2010 (2NOV). At first the problems could be summed up by saying “Hey, its bleeding edge.” That is no longer the case. There are no excuses left for its inadequacies, of which, there are many. In this post I’m only going to cover the issue of renting and watching movies in the Google Play store on my GTV. So, there are three paths that one might believe she/he could watch a rented/purchased movie or TV series episode on one’s GTV. First, the most logical to me, would be to click “watch now” in the Google Play store immediately after closing the purchase. Not so. Second, would be to search in the GTV TV and Movies App and see it listed in, oh I don’t know, how about a “Rented” movie or a “Rented/Purchased” list. Not the case. And finally, if you're particularly Youtube savvy you might realize that there is a “Movies” tab in Youtube’s website and load it in GTV’s Chrome 5 and watch it there. Success!!!
               Google Play Movies in GTV:
     The Google Play store App on GTV does not allow access to any of the non-app sections of the store. Not the music, magazines, books or film media. So, in order to access those sections of Google Play you have to load the store in GTV’s Chrome 5. Now you’re like “Sweet! Everything is here!”. So, you select your movie and pay to rent it or buy it and then the moment of release approaches as you move the cursor to the “Watch Now” button. Then you click. DOH!! “Sorry, this video can not be played on this system.?!?!?”. Google’s smart TV’s do not play movies from Google’s Movie store? WTF?
               GTV TV & MOVIES App:
     Not gonna spend much time on this. Here is the bottom line. The App is supposed to learn what you like, search for content relevant to your tastes and remember your favorites. It does appear to do that. To me, however, it's just kinda mind-effing that its results do not include Google Play Movies/TV and that it does not allow you to have a GTV Movies App category that is something like “Rented/Purchased”. So, long story short: you can't watch your Google Play visual media in GTV’s TV & MOVIES App. EPIC FAIL
               Youtube on GTV:
     Based on the quality of the apps, detail in the UI and performance I’d say that the only part of Google that gives an eff about GTV is Youtube. Ever notice that tab at the top of the Youtube web interface that says “Movies”. You buy and rent movies there. It’s just a Youtube skin of the Google Play Movies store. As far as I can tell the two sync up exactly. I rented Sherlock Holmes II on the web interface of Google Play Movies and then the Youtube Movies web Interface had a reminder in it to remember to watch it before it expired. So, I clicked “watch now” in the Youtube Movies web interface and waited with bated breath. GTV gives the “Complete Action Using” menu with Chrome and Youtube GTV App as options. I clicked the Youtube App Icon and voila! You can watch Google Play Movies on GTV inside the GTV Youtube App. Take note, the Youtube App did crash on me twice during the course of my watching the movie and writing this. Now, if you play about in the GTV Youtube app you will find a Rentals section that will allow you to see what you have paid to watch and start it, furthermore there is also a link to the Youtube skinned Google Play Movies web interface. Once again, the takeaway, for me, is that Youtube actually gives a crap about GTV and Google Play does not.
               Here are some “Ifs”:
     If you click Chrome on the completing action menu you will get an error from Chrome 5 suggesting a flash update. If you click the error link it will lead you to the Adobe site that will promptly inform you that Chrome will update automatically thus not requiring a download now anyway. However, all that is meaningless because this Chrome is GTV’s weird Chrome that is locked in at something like version 5 and can’t be updated and won’t update. That is a whole other gripe that will have to wait for another post. GTV Team, everytime I click on a movie in a Google web service GTV should automagically open it with the appropriate movie viewer app, which appears to be, at least in the short term, the Youtube App.
               Recommendation To Users: “How do I watch movies purchased from Google Play on my GTV?”:
     Use the Youtube Website and GTV Youtube App on GTV for everything concerning your Movies and Shows watching experience.

You guys aren't privy to all the new shit, so...

Hello and welcome to our Blog, AnythingGoogle! I'm Eric, and I'll be one of at least two of the main posters in this blog. We started this blog as a way to write down some of our ideas about Google and Google products. I'm a TC in a Google Groups forum, and I submit bugs all the time, but I wanted a place where I could rant talk about all of the various bugs and ideas I have for Google products. If I'm discussing it here on this blog, you can bet that I've already told it to Google and they may or may not have listened. Please don't tell me to submit a bug report. Even if I'm saying WTF, I'm not saying that anyone at Google is an idiot. I know that there is much more to the story behind the scenes than I can see: deadlines have to be made, coding is hard, lead engineers get sick or have babies, and the music/movie industry is essentially an evil empire. I''m not judging, I'm just wishing for better, and I can't abide another toe.

I was encouraged to do this blog by Dan, so if anyone needs to be blamed, it should be him. I could be considered a Google Fanboy by some, but I think that I'm actually pretty critical of their products. I'm not a fan of doing anything the hard way, so if something is wrong, then I'll be against it (or for fixing it). This blog might come across as bitching or whining sometimes, but that's not really my intent. Ideally, I would like to illustrate ideas and concepts so well and consistently that Google would see my unbiased nearly genius ideas and want to hire me as an efficiency engineer to do product testing for literally metric shit tons of money.