It's sure to be the next Facebook. It'll dwarf MySpace.com.
I bring you: The Ask a Ninja social network.
For anyone who's been using typewriters and watching over-the-air television the last couple of years, Ask a Ninja is the hit video blog in which a ninja answers questions about the lifestyle of sneaking undetected into locked buildings and opening victims up with katanas. And things like that.
The hit video blog is launching its own social-networking service.
(Credit: Ask a Ninja)Well, the audience has gotten so big that the creators have decided to do something that almost no one else has thought of: launch a site on which the video blog's fans can network with each other, create friends lists, leave testimonials--surely about the best suggestions on how to slice up evildoers and the like--and so forth.
Ah, so I kid just a little bit.
The truth is, I'm just not sure how successful a deeply focused social network like this can be. The Ask a Ninja community may be passionate and strong, but is it big enough to support a whole social-networking service? Especially when it's possible to set up focused groups on other networks?
Well, of course, we won't know the answer for a while. But I'm skeptical.
Particularly, because I wonder how members will be able to tell their friends apart when every single one of them is wearing the exact same ninja outfit.
YouTube has launched the first ever YouTube Awards with 70 videos in seven categories. This week viewers can vote to pick their favorites of 2006. It's kind of like the Oscars, but for user-generated video clips such as Lonelygirl15 and Ask a Ninja. As of right now, there's nothing on the awards page but a bunch of comments from confused users who have made their way to the site to find nothing to vote on. Digging deeper, clicking on playlist shows a full listing of clips. We're assuming there will be a voting system similar to the one for Super Bowl commercials, along with some snazzy layout put into place when the page goes live at 2 p.m. PST.
There's much discussion highlighting that this isn't a new idea. In fact, the Vloggies did it last year, complete with an actual event. Winners of this year's YouTube Awards will receive trophies and special promotion on YouTube's front page. I'd like to see YouTube offer some sort of cash or video camera prize to the winners. After all, the traffic and ad revenue generated from these videos is certainly worth rewarding the submitters with something besides a virtual trophy.
Marshall Kirkpatrick from SplashCast has painstakingly taken the time to add all the nominated videos to a single SplashCast player, which I've embedded below [via NewTeeVee].
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