So by now you guys should all know that I am no longer wasting my days looking for videos...that is why for the first time in two years I actually have room in my queue (Personal queue is pretty full though Yes, a sifting addiction can be treated for those in the community concerned that they themselves are becoming addicted.

 

Some of us spend money to enjoy our moving picture experience here within the walls of this community. It's interesting how we have watched as other social platforms got massive corporate donations. We are lucky we had Lucky to slug out 3.0, it is a beautiful work of code. If you have been on the sift since 2006 then I am sure you have witnessed the future of media and the future of the internet unfold before you. As we have scrounged the youtubes and blogs for Sift fuel, the outside world was moving. I like it here, every Internetter since the dawn of the Internet has become social within communties big and small.. And although I work full time within some of the heavyily funded giants, I love this community here because we come from all over the globe and we all have different video tastes. As a clip hunter I appreciate the tools we have here to sort online video too.

Online video is changing, most of us should have known that back when TayTV broke the "YouTube was bought by Google story" eons ago.  Oh..and so did the Sift. <---- This link offers great research by the way of lots of archived coverage of that 2006 event. Dag linked to a Great Mark Cuban blog post, with a hint of Irony when you hit play on the embed.

 

The Sift is at Risk! - as Krono pointed out in this Sift Talk a month ago, Regional Blocking is becoming widespread and I fear for the Sift. Our great community is home to many Canadians and for some reason, and America is building a wall, it just happens to not be in Mexico but within the mega video Social Networks of the Internet.

I first encountered Regional Blocking after experiencing for the joy of having access to a real life version of a TV archive that I thought would be available in heavan, The Daily Show archive. I was pretty upset, at one point I was so delusional I drafted up plans to incite a Colbert Boycott! Me? I have been the hugest Colbert Fan even before he stuck the Banana in his mouth. 

(btw Canadians...the video above is region blocked)

So that historical footage is locked away unless I hack a proxy or something like that. Either way its Something my grandma will never figure out, and she loves the way I describe this clip, a clip, a 91 year old Canadian, wife of a WWII vet, will never experience...What is it with old ladies and the Royal Family? Why is it America is suddenly so afraid with Canadians watching their video content. We get the Buffalo News in Ontario and the Seattle News here in BC. And yes, between 1999 and 2005 you could watch the Simpsons syndicated during every hours of the day with just a regular cable hookup, half the idiot box is American. 

 

 

This is why Videosift is vitally important, we have an archive of almost every great clip from youtube that saw the light of the internet before the great Google purchase of 2006. If they have been removed from the net we can anticipate their return from a the deep end of the dead pool. I for one hope that once the dust settles its only sane, friendly corporations that survive. Because this new trend seems like a step backwards to where we were a year ago. Isn't it called the World Wide Web.

Region Blocking sucks, Tear down this wall.