Just a bit of a rant in the video below. Stop asking me to Digg your stuff. I think Digg is lame, and the traffic you get from it is lamer. So I’m asking you to stop asking me to Digg your stuff.

Look, we’re friends, or we know each other online sorta. I like you and I really don’t have a problem with you wanting to use Digg. I just don’t believe it in and I think it’s a waste of my time. So when you ask me to Digg something, I think “Ugh, why is my friend asking me this?” The funny thing is, I’ll still go and Digg the post for you just because I’m nice, but I don’t like it. Stop asking me to Digg sh*t.

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Also watch at:
Yahoo, Metacafe, Google, Revver, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Veoh and Viddler.

I don’t. Never did. I don’t find it useful. Am I missing something? I have my feeds, and Techmeme and BumpZee. Do I, or did I ever need Digg?

The answer is no. Do you use it? Be honest. Do you go there every day and surf around? You don’t.

By the way, they now have ads. Even more reason not to visit.

I’ll leave you with my best Loren Feldman imitation.

“Who f-ing cares? Now they have ads, it sucks even more. And they chose Microsoft? What in the f were they thinking? Dumb.”

Yep, it’s pretty easy, and I’ll show you how below. But first know something. I think this is wrong, and I hope that it can be stopped. If you’re not fully aware of copyright issues, you should know that stealing content (video or otherwise) is an offense, and stealing someone’s video out of YouTube is probably going to get you sued quick. Don’t do it.

Step 1 To Stealing YouTube Videos
The first thing you do is visit a site called KissYouTube.com. I don’t believe they’re associated with YouTube, which means that the site will probably be taken down any minute as it’s in violation of the brand. Just enter in the YouTube code for any video you want to download and hit go.

Here’s the link I put in about the NBC hit show ‘Heroes’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWJJBwKhvp4

Here’s a result page:
http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=IWJJBwKhvp4

This let’s you download a .flv of the YouTube movie. Download to your hard drive.

Step 2 To Stealing YouTube Videos

Just do a search on Google for how to convert files. I found this tool right away that costs $29.95.

http://www.applian.com/replay-converter/index_flv.php

Notice the yellow arrow in the screen shot? Just use this tool to convert the .flv file into anything that you want, like a .avi, or .wmv.

Step 3 To Stealing YouTube Videos

Simply import your converted files into your video software and edit away!

Digg this story?

Digg may have been the best “user driven social content website” out there, but not anymore. BumpZee, a new, innovative and unique community/tool built by Scott Jangro, is better than Digg, on may levels. In fact, BumpZee might be better than Digg, Techmeme, MyBlogLog and many others, combined.

Don’t believe it? Here’s 5 reasons why BumpZee is better, and why BumpZee will blaze a trail as a pioneer of successful web 2.0 mashups.

Note: BumpZee is currently beta testing with only one community focused on the affiliate marketing industry.

#5 Reason BumpZee Is Better Than Digg
BumpZee is more than “bumping”, Digg is not. All you can do on Digg is submit and/or “digg” stories. Sure, BumpZee does that too, called “bumps”, but that’s only a small part of the core functionality in BumpZee. In all reality, that simple functionality is about all there really is to Digg.

BumpZee is so much more. Specifically, BumpZee combines…

all in one tight little fun package

#4 Reason BumpZee Is Better Than Digg
BumpZee is new, so it’s not gamed, Digg is (documented). In BumpZee, the community polices itself. How? Users can not only bump entries they think are worthwhile, they are encouraged to dump ones that are not.

#3 Reason BumpZee Is Better Than Digg
BumpZee is professional, Digg is not. Since the BumpZee community is built from extraneous blogs that feed it, and because it polices itself, it is so far absent of massive amounts of unprofessional users looking to yell “lame” or “sucks” to every piece of content that isn’t about Apple or the iPhone or Bill Gates sucking “d00d”!

Instead, it maintains a useful and friendly tone and provides an helpful experience to each user. Doesn’t matter if they are participants, or just readers. They all can enjoy.

#2 Reason BumpZee Is Better Than Digg
BumpZee solves problems for the busy professional. Digg is just a time waster. When you visit BumpZee, you are able to do so many things at once, like track conversations, bump stories, learn about new blogs in your industry, meet new people, and even participate in creating your own blog listing (if you don’t have a blog of your own), and much, much more.

The ability to do so many things within one place, amongst your niche group of industry peers makes BumpZee an invaluable tool and time saving, problem solving application.

#1 Reason BumpZee Is Better Than Digg
BumpZee has widgets that are actually easy to use, easy to setup and are actually useful. Digg widgets aren’t very robust and are hard to implement, and their core usefullness can be questioned.

In fact, if you take a deeper look at the BumpZee widget page, you’ll see that there is an actual Wordpress plugin design and distributed for download to anyone’s blog, as well as some easy to copy/paste code to get the widget on your blog.

Summary: BumpZee Is The Future – Mashups Will Win
You have to hand it to Scott Jangro, the creator of BumpZee. His vision has mashed up the very best pieces of social media and user generated content communities and tools, and put them all together into a fun, and extremely useful utility.

Once this launches in more verticals besides affiliate marketing, I predict it will become bigger than Digg, and faster. It’s just that good.

Go ahead, you tell me what’s better?

]]> http://www.jimkukral.com/5-reasons-why-bumpzee-will-be-the-next-digg-but-even-bigger/feed/ 23 http://www.jimkukral.com/free-online-marketing-ideas-radio-show-december-19-2006/ http://www.jimkukral.com/free-online-marketing-ideas-radio-show-december-19-2006/#comments Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:37:22 +0000 Jim Kukral http://www.jimkukral.com/?p=51

Today’s show was just me, all alone. If you didn’t catch it live like the rest, you can listen to the archives here. Reminder, their won’t be a show next week due to the holidays, but I will pick it back up on Jan 02, 2007.

SHOW NOTES:

I spoke about my latest quick media hit website/story at www.fanprotest.com.

I also talked about my latest idea “Donut Juice” :) Hopefully Dunkin Donuts will be sending me a check soon.

The rest of the show was a stretch for time. We need more callers!

]]> http://www.jimkukral.com/free-online-marketing-ideas-radio-show-december-19-2006/feed/ 1 http://www.jimkukral.com/dont-blame-the-rest-of-us-for-digg-a-holes/ http://www.jimkukral.com/dont-blame-the-rest-of-us-for-digg-a-holes/#comments Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:46:40 +0000 Jim Kukral http://www.jimkukral.com/?p=48

Pouge at the NYtimes goes off in an almost Andy Rooney tirade about ‘Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette?‘.

The deeper we sail into the new online world of communications, the sadder I get about its future.
I’m OK with criticism, I’m fine with disagreement, I’m perfectly capable of handling angry mail. That’s not the issue here (although my teenage correspondent above was, in fact, wrong about every single one of his points).
I’ve even accepted personal attacks as part of the job. I’m a columnist; the heat comes with the kitchen.
But what’s really stunning is how hostile *ordinary* people are to each other online these days.

I’ve been around, and I’ve seen more forum and comment trolls than most, so maybe I’m immune, but I can honestly say that the root of all new future trolls originates at Digg. It’s like the new breeding ground of trolls in training. They should change the Digg tag line to “99.9% Troll Super Fantastic – Fuck You, This Is Lame!”.

Seriously, Mr. Pogue, you’re right that a lot of people online today are jackasses, however, a lot are not. Stay away from Digg, and stop writing about the things that 15-year-olds with ergo keyboards obsess about, and you’ll live a much happier life :)

]]> http://www.jimkukral.com/dont-blame-the-rest-of-us-for-digg-a-holes/feed/ 0 http://www.jimkukral.com/valleywag-smacks-down-digg-users/ http://www.jimkukral.com/valleywag-smacks-down-digg-users/#comments Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:36:22 +0000 Jim Kukral http://www.jimkukral.com/?p=44

In DIGGBAIT: The 8 People You Meet on Digg, Nick hilariously outlines the 8 types of people that use Digg.

My favorites are…

4. The One-liner. Always walks right in with the right thing to say. Often replies to trolls and spammers with some wordplay or a conceptual Monty Python reference.

or…

2. The Loud Downdigger. Pushes the thumbs-down and won’t stop talking about it. “What do you get when you submit a 3 year old website?” “THIS IS BULLS**T I’M GOING FOR A WALK.” “I tried the game and it was suckiness.”

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