Attack of the YouTube Clones

I have seen a surge of video sharing sites lately, each attempting to land another google-youtube type of deal.

Some of them have a different spin:

VideoJug: http://www.videojug.com
I like this site because it has nifty video tutorials like 'How to wear a Tie Windsor Style', 'How to Make Kadhai Paneer' and 'Disappearing Card Tricks'! This is certainly a step beyond the text based tutorials like learnto.com. The videos are shot by the VideoJug folks themselves and are very professional, there is a section on user uploaded videos too.

ApnaVideo: http://www.apnavideo.com
MeraVideo: http://www.meravideo.com
These are desi startups focusing on the Indian market. They could end up like baazee and bidorbuy did with eBay, get swallowed up by a global player...or get eliminated by a special Indian Videos section in YouTube

DailyMotion: http://www.dailymotion.com
I like this site because it has all the Dave Chappelle shows. I wonder how long before it is taken offline by ComedyCentral

MetaCafe: http://www.metacafe.com
MetaCafe has been showing up a lot in digg stories lately, may end up with Yahoo.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
I havent seen anything starkly different here, infact I have seen a lot more YouTube videos on Myspace profiles.

Google Videos
Yahoo Videos
MSN Videos
Dont know/Dont Care.

A sign of the saturation in the market is the exit of Guba, another video sharing site. A new site eefoof.com has sprung up which promises to share advertising revenues with the videographer.

I am sure in time we will see innovative video search capabilities that span these sites just like search engines did with plain ol' web sites.

Quiz: Which Superhero Are You?

No surprises here!

Results of the superhero personality test:


You are Superman

Superman 85% Spider-Man 75% Supergirl 70% The Flash 70% Robin 60% Hulk 60% Batman 60% Iron Man 50% Wonder Woman 40% Green Lantern 40% Catwoman 25%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Survival of the Fattest

I bought a few goldfishes for our turtle tank to add some color and variety to the otherwise drab school of guppies. The turtles had been peacefully coexisting with the other fishes for over 5 years...no surprise with all the pro-vegetarian messages sent out by movies like Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.

No sooner did I introduce the new goldfishes that the turtles showed a sudden fascination for them and in an few minutes were snapping on the fishes and chasing them around. By the end of the week, not only did 3 of my 4 goldfishes get eaten up by the turtles but so did the entire school of guppies. Speaking with the petshop owner, I learnt that these goldfishes are considered breeder fishes in turtle tanks and seeing them the turtles took a renewed interest in fishes and turned pesco-vegetarian.

One particular goldfish however showed strong urge to survive...it voraciously consumed the turtle food and in time grew to 10 times its original size! It now became too large for the turtles to pursue and eat.

This is an amazing story about the survival of the fittest fattest!