YouTube offers Search From ALL Embedded Videos

Today I was reviewing my blog after adding a TwitPic widget to the shoulder (left side) and coincidently moved the cursor over an embedded YouTube video on the Google iPhone App when I noticed a search box appear under my cursor!

Wow, that is pretty incredible and according to the YouTube blog, they just recently added the functionality - I love it when I hear about new stuff when it's still new. Searching YouTube from all embedded YouTube videos, wherever they are in blogs and web sites all over the webIs pretty impressive!

I've often been watching an embedded video on a blog here or there, wanted to see a related video that wasn't shown in the "Related" videos they incorporate into the scrolling strip at the bottom of each video after completion of the clip you just finished watching. I always think, "Nah, I'm busy right now - I'll go later" (I never do that) but now I'm in danger of actually getting distracted immediately - NOW - because I can search YouTube from the video I've just watched, on the site I'm already on.

This is a great offering from YouTube and may result in many of us who formerly resisted wasting our time watching too much YouTube stuff to start wasting too much time watching more YouTube stuff. Because we can now search for it from every existing YouTube player across the web.

Below is an example from the YouTube blog explaining the search feature. Take a look at other new features while you are at it, like the ability to see closed captioning, translations of those closed caption subtitles, and all included video annotations from the author. Those features are basically available from the button in the lower right corner of the video player.

Impressive stuff guys! I hope I can resist the temptation to use the search feature and stop myself from looking at foreign language closed captions

Budweiser Super Bowl Ads Dominate Game Day

The Super Bowl commercials that always stick in people's minds each year are inevitably the Budweiser ads. Last year's "Rock, Paper, Scissors contest for the last bottle of Bud at a party was the big winner in mind-share. This year Anheuser Busch will dominate again with seven spots during the Patriots, Giants contest. Here are a group of ads that have been leaked to the web ahead of Sunday's game (some are just teasers giving you the first few seconds of the ad):

Here is one about cave men, which have become wildly popular in the past couple of years between Fedex, Geico Insurance and now Budweiser, I've now had my fill of hairy guys with big foreheads:

This one is titled "X-Ray Vision" but that's about all you'll see in this short teaser:

Now we have a fire-breathing date, because, well, Budweiser is everything you want in a beer, including the ability to breathe fire:

Now we have a friendship budding between a Dalmation and the last lonely Clydesdale, who didn't get chosen for the team:

And finally, here's Carlos Mencia teaching immigrants how to pick up "American Chicks" in a bar with unlikely pick-up lines:

But that's not all Bud has up their sleeve. They will make you work for it, but if you really MUST see another Budweiser ad, they will give you a code to "unlock" a secret ad, viewable on their web site after the game if you vote each ad up or down on your cell phone during the game after "registering" to do so! Wow, that's serious brand engagement. Here's and Advertising Age Video Link where you can get more details before the game on this odd Budweiser "Secret Ad" effort from their own video "3 Minute Ad Age".

Superbowl Commercials Countdown

Less than a month remains until the best ads of the year appear during Superbowl 42 (XLII) in Phoenix. Super Bowl Commercials are probably the only ones I watch all year on purpose. Here's a superbowl countdown widget to use at your web site or blog if you can't wait to see those commercials yourself.

See Super Bowl Commericals

Get this widget!