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YouTube just announced some major extensions to their APIs (see official blog-post), which finally enable uploading of video to their site. seems like my own hack, PHPTube, is therefor rendered obsolete, and for good… :). the new API (see the developer guide) seems to allow both user-triggered authentication (similar to what Flickr has been doing for ages) and direct uploading (similar to PHPTube). there might still be a future for PHPTube though, if I ever find the time to adopt the new API. compared to PHPTube, implementation of the new API’s process-flow seems rather complicated, so there might be demand for a simple wrapper. we’ll see… for now, well done Google!

update: Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch points out what the new API basically means: Google offering YouTube as a (almost) whitelabel video-platform (”almost” since I guess videos will still be watermarked with the YouTube-logo)…

I’ve still got some invitation-codes for french video-startup Seesmic to share (thx, Hugh). Seesmic facilitates video-conversations among its users, similar to a Kyte.tv-channel or the video-reply of YouTube. while there’s currently no mobile client available, it’s quite easy to use Shozu to upload video directly from your cellphone - thx to an open FTP-interface on Seesmic’s side (details here).

If you’re a blogger and want to try out Seesmic, just drop me a backlink to this post and I’ll get you going (sorry, no comments this time).

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Steve Gillmor (The Gillmor Gang) is back from the dead with his new video-show Bad Sinatra. the first episode features Mark Benioff (Salesforce,CEO) alongside former gang-members Doc Searls, Dan Farber & Michael Arrington. bring it on!

just noticed that my YouTube-hack PHPTube has been nominated for June’s PHP Innovation Award at PHP Classes, cool! weither you’re using PHPTube or not, your votes are highly appreciated… [voters are required to sign up for an account, which I'ld recommend to PHP-developers anyways, PHP Classes being a constant source of quality-code for years]. thx!

btw., if you’re looking for convenient ways to upload clips to multiple video-platforms with a single click, check out hey!spread - the meta uploader currently supports YouTube, MySpace video, Photobucke, Blip.tv, Metacafe and several others….

Google finally released their own (there have been some more or less well-working rip-offs in the past) mobile version of YouTube at m.youtube.com! the mobile XHTML-application utilizes external video-player software for playback (Real Networks’ media-player in case of most current Nokia-phones). unlike Robert Scoble, who’s on a Nokia N95 going for 750,- USD, everything worked fine on my oldschool Nokia 6630 (after I’ve setup the default data-gateway in my Real Player, that is). naturally, YouTube’s rather poor video-quality translates quite well to the low-resolution screens of most mobile phones…the biggest catch however is, that YouTube currently doesn’t provide all videos on their mobile portal (long tail anyone?). otherwise, the stripped down XHTML-app works quite well - after opening the frontpage, I’ve got video playback started within a single click. I only wish the search-box would have been placed on top of the page, not at the bottom…

have you tried out m.youtube.com on your phone yet? shoot me a comment, and don’t forget to mention which phone you’re on…

Google Operating System has screenshots of the upcoming relaunch of YouTube’s flash-based video-player. although the embedded demo doesn’t work for me, it seems like the new player will feature cue-jumping to parts of the clip not yet downloaded as well as embedded thumbnail-preview of related clips.

as reported here a few days ago, Last.fm  hast now started to integrate video-content with their service. nothing groundbreaking like personalized video-channels for now though, but nifty quality clips for selected artists (check The Knife for some examples).

nothing about this on the official Last.fm-page yet (their blog is kind of hard to find), but Read/Write Web and Mashable both report that the music recommendation service & social network based on the Audioscrobbler technology is about to add video-support within this week! unlike YouTube, which is host to millions of low-res music-clips without legal authorization, Last.fm will probably leverage it’s existing relationships with music-labels to offer a legally solid portfolio of video-content, just like they do with audio today. R/WW:

Initially it will be mainly independent labels featured on the video Last.fm - such as Ninja Tune, Nettwerk Music Group, Domino, Warp, Atlantic and Mute. However among the rosters of those independents are brand name artists like the Arctic Monkeys, Moby and Aphex Twin. Last.fm has also made partnerships with big labels like EMI and Warner, along with “over 20,000 independent labels

moreover, Last.fm will offer superior audio-quality (128kbit/s) over YouTube’s poor 64Kbit/s, less than radio-quality encoding. while probably not part of the initial release, I bet a personalized video-channel based on already existing preference-profiles is only a matter of time - you may call it “MTV 2.0″, like R/WW’s Richard MacManus legitimately did.

update: if you can’t wait for Last.fm’s video-feature, I suggest trying out Last.tv in the meantime: the work of two dutch students, this very cool site mashes up your Last.fm profile with YouTube!

I’ve just received 3 more invites to Joost, and since the last time demand exceeded supply thought I’ld put them on offer again. just drop me a comment if you’ld like to try out Joost. myself I’ve been tuning in more often lately, esp. like the music-video channels by XL recordings and MOS.