Oh, Al Gore.

The previously relatively quiet second in command to Former Pimp Daddy Commander in Chief Bill Clinton has gone a bit wild since he left office and experienced his own unsuccessful bid for the White House more than ten years ago. He has since split with Tipper, and now spends the majority of his time in the public eye making increasingly dire predictions about the fate of Earth’s residents if we don’t get super-cereal about Climate Change.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, scientific consensus indicates that climate change over the past half a century is likely due to human activities. Folks with a specific financial interest in maintaining the environmental protection status quo have done everything in their power to get you to believe otherwise, often appealing to a dislike or distaste of what they portray as snooty “intellectualism” or elitism among environmentalists- Gore being a prominent target thanks to his propensity for speaking out on the issue.

The former Veep is probably not going to win over many in the uncertain-about-climate-change camp by comparing deniers- who prefer the term “global warming”- to pre-civil rights era racists. During a recent Ustream interview with Alex Bogusky, Gore sniffed:

“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me… My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”

Gore recalled the tipping points in the South when racism shifted from socially acceptable to awkward and unwelcome. He explained:

“There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

He added:

“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money.”

Watch a clip of Gore’s commentary below- do you agree that the arguments against the existence of climate change are indefensible?

Al Gore Compares Climate Change Deniers to Racists is a post from: The Inquisitr

Any doubt that the recession was over in the tech community were settled today when two big rounds were announced: $75 million for Ustream and $50 million for Glam Media.

By themselves the rounds might not seem exceptional, until you consider that Glam had already raised $125 million previously, with its last round of $10 million coming less than 12 months ago. The $50 million is a bit more modest for Ustream, who had previously raised $12.8 million.

How much money is enough?

Ustream has the more difficult business model of the two with bandwidth costs, copyright and UGC management complicating things. They’re doing a good job, and will probably use the money well.

Glam Media though is the complete opposite to Ustream. Proven business model in ads; sure, the spending dropped during the recession, but ads were still there, and given they’ve dropped guaranteed payments for sites they sell ads for, they shouldn’t be losing money selling ads. They’ve also been running the business for over six years (and over four years since officially launching to the public in September 05.) How the f&*k to do you burn $125 million in that time selling ads? More importantly, what sort of insane person thinks putting in another $50 million is going to magically turn around the fortunes of a company that has failed for the last 5 years?

Gla isn’t some highly complicated, ground breaking tech startup that takes time to get the bugs sorted and build an audience, it’s a company that primarily sells ads for other sites.

They’re also not interested in business, or likewise they didn’t blow the $125 million on secretaries: twice in the last two years I’ve contacted them as a potential ad partner, and twice I’ve never had one response, despite speaking to most of their competitors directly. I’m not suggesting that we are a perfect example, but I’ve been told by others that they’ve experienced similar silence from Glam, while most competitors are keen for new sites to represent.

Here’s a hint to Glam: if you don’t have enough quality inventory, you’re not going to attract enough quality ad placements. Even if you’re not interested in increasing the sites you rep at a given time, you should always be considering applications because among the morass of blogs might be a diamond waiting to find a home. The common courtesy of a thanks or no thanks doesn’t take a new round of $50 million to afford.

The funniest thing: they’re talking about an IPO this year. I’d rather go to a casino, the odds are better, and besides, I’d actually know what I was doing.

The Crazy Times Are Back In Startup Land is a post from: The Inquisitr

Online video and lifestreaming service Ustream.tv just hit the 1,000,000 follower mark on their Twitter.com/ustream account.

Now, normally we wouldn’t give a twitter account that hits 1,000,000 followers a second look (except maybe the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN Twitter race to 1,000,000), but this time it’s different. Ustream.tv is one of only a handful of brands that has reached this milestone and it’s a great example of how they have leveraged social media and how social media leverages them to grow their company.

Shari Foldes, a member of the marketing team at Ustream, says:

“…Ustream is the largest live streaming site on Twitter by far, one of the only internet companies to break 1 million, and Ustream generates significant traffic from Twitter–more than any other source (including Google). Ustream utilizes Twitter to generate interest for immediate, breaking streams. For example, during the Michael Jackson memorial service in July, which broke Ustream traffic records, the link to the Ustream channel that was tweeted was clicked more than 80,000 times. Our 1+ million followers allows for the virality of mainstream live events, including Michael Jackson’s memorial service, the Jonas Brothers, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and other events including CBS car chases, puppies and more.”

With the popularity of video sites on the internet and how a live streaming service compliments the immediacy of social media and Twitter in particular, it’s no surprise Ustream is flourishing on Twitter. As well as how Ustream uses twitter to promote mainstream celebrities and events, the celebs themselves are using it to promote themselves. If Miley Cyrus turns on her webcam and fires up the Ustream broadcaster, she can send a tweet directly from there to her 1.66 million followers and instantly have 10′s of 1000′s of people click to watch her and interact with her over at Ustream, generating a ton of traffic for the site.

Many companies fail miserably at social media, but they could be learning a lot by watching what Ustream is doing. They’re one of the only companies out there that has effectively closed the loop of social media, by truly connecting users across multiple platforms and multiple forms of online media.

Ustream.tv Hits One Million Followers on Twitter is a post from: The Inquisitr

Justin.tv has signed new deals with Fox and others that will see the live stream site hit pirated content that is archived on the site, as well as pirated content as it’s being streamed live.

Working with Vobile, Justin.tv has begun fingerprinting all saved clips and scanning them against Vobile’s content database. Users with clips that are found to be infringing will have their clips removed and the channel taken offline.

The bigger challenge is live video, with users uploading 24.3 hours of live video per minute every day. From November, in partnership with Fox and Net Result, Justin.tv will expand the fingerprinting system to all live video, which in theory will mean broadcasts of pirated live content (such as sporting events, see picture above) will be stopped as they begin, not some time later following a takedown request from the provider.

As a preemptive measure for Justin.tv the deals make a lot of sense: the company may be protected by the DMCA, but likewise the volume of pirated content made the company a possible target for legal action.

Justin.tv gets serious on copyright, signs deal with Fox is a post from: The Inquisitr

The challenge in the live streaming market from the beginning has been monetization. Sites such as Mogulus have moved from a consumer offering to a revenue focused professional model, but the rest of the players have had it hard: how do you charge for a service that your competition is offering for free?

Justin.tv, who for the record we love, not only because it’s a great service, but because they’ve also catered for non-US users where similar services haven’t, have offered for the first time a paid pro membership. Having looked at it, I can confidently say that even if this new subscription offering had come from my wife or mother, I’d say the same thing: WTF.

For $9.95 a month, pro account holders get to watch videos without ads, special colors in chat, a special icon in chat, special pro badges on their profiles, and last but not least, five free “gifts,” little graphics you can send to other users on Justin.tv that usually cost $1 each to buy.

Let me make that clear: no ads, pretty colors, special badges, and five dinky graphics. Did I say WTF already?

Justin.tv is pitching the offering as a way of “giving [users] access to features that are difficult or impossible for us to provide for free.” The ad part I get, but pretty colors in chat? Really? And even then, would users really pay $9.95 a month to not have ads?

What a pro membership should have offered is ad share or ad rights for users who broadcast on Justin.tv, maybe improved quality streams or priority access, or even improved customization options for their profile pages (not trinkets, but actual html access, even on a limited basis.) Surely there’s something better they could have pitched that what they have?

(via Centernetworks)

Justin.tv delivers a dose of WTF with new pro membership offering is a post from: The Inquisitr

While I wasn’t able to attend the SXSW conference on my own I know a couple of friends that were going to be there and so I figured that courtesy of the uStream embed that Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins (The Inquisitr man in the field) had on his page I would spend some time watching the goings on. Now it is pretty cool that we have things like uStream where we can watch live feeds of different meet-ups but in some ways I think we still have a very long way to go.

It is easy say that it is the spontaneity that makes these types of video streams fun and cutting edge but in some ways I think it contributes more to the amateurism of the medium as it stands today. One glaring problem I noticed was the sound quality which fluctuated between being totally absent to overly loud I spent much of my time with my fingers on the volume button for my speakers.

The one other thing that irritated me is not knowing the name of whoever was talking. It is especially bad if you happened to jump into the middle of a conversation. Would it really be so hard to add a little bit of professionalism by showing a quick overlay of the name of the person speaking. It’s not something that would have to be done all the time but come on anything is better than trying to follow a conversation and not having a clue who the person talking is.

uStream is really cool and having it as an option to be able to follow events like what is happening at SXSW is great but a little bit of professionalism in presentation sure couldn’t hurt.

Some thoughts about SXSW and uStream is a post from: The Inquisitr

As Hurricane Gustav approaches Louisiana and over a million people are evacuated, a few crazy people, and some static webcams are providing a live stream live from the area. Here’s some of the places you can watch Hurricane Gustav live…well, as long as the power and internet connections hold

Ustream.tv

At the time of writing, Ustream.tv is offering a number of live streams from the area. One embed below, and direct links following:

Hurricane Gustav From Luling: seems to be a static cam facing out on a street

Gustav from Slidell: another static cam

Crosby Tubs Gustav

Others

Louisiana Gannett News covering the Hurricane Live.

NOLA has a number of cams throughout the New Orleans area.

Earthcam offers a New Orleans cam, but doesn’t offer a continual live stream, only snapshots.

The Louisiana Department of Transport offers traffic cams across New Orleans. This shot right taken at 6pm Sunday shows how quiet the city has already become.

There’s also a variety of traffic cameras available from Baton Rogue.

For the latest updates on the storm, Ning is hosting an information center, and SocialMedian has a page as well.

UPDATE*** For the latest storm stream, see Hurricane Ike Live.

Watch Hurricane Gustav Live Online is a post from: The Inquisitr

TWiT Live airs on Stickam.com five days a week and since first streaming on Stickam.com last month has attracted an amazing audience of nearly 400,000 people daily and more than 3 million total live views.

Stickam.com have also unveiled a high-definition wide-screen format for live streaming Internet video, providing a 16:9 aspect ratio. This is claimed to be the first wide-screen live streaming format publicly available on the Web.

I’ve been harsh on Stickam.com in the past, mostly because every time I have previously visited the site I keep seeing semi-naked young girls pout for a male audience and not much else. But to be fair Stickam.com is getting serious in the battle of live streaming supremacy, and the TWiT deal helps. I’ll make an effort to give it another shot in the next week and I’ll write it up.

Update: if you’re not sure by what I mean in the last paragraph, click here for a screenshot I just took from the streams page on Stickam.com. Note: marginally NSFW.

Stickam Signs TWiT Deal is a post from: The Inquisitr