GuuzakaTube
05/12/17
Mother's
Day 2017 Entry
Why
is the title in a feminine magenta shade? Because
it's close to Mother's Day.
Because it is Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day Bloggers! This blog
post was originally supposed to be launched on Friday, as you can
tell from the date in the top right corner, but because I didn't get
it done on time, I decided to complete it Saturday evening, and
launch it on Mother's Day. A much more attractive title than “May
12 2017 Entry” anyway.
Just thought I'd answer that question in case anybody was curious, or
too afraid to ask. Alright, to tell the truth: nobody probably gave
two rat's backsides about this, so this is really just me more or
less being lame and corny. So! Perhaps the bigger question is:
what's been happening this past week? Well, in terms of YouTube
productivity, it hasn't been good at all! This is now the 2nd
week of no videos at all! Kind of feels like three weeks to be
honest. I've already detailed the cause of this from last week's entry,
so
to recap: I happened to strangely get sick on the April 29-30
weekend, and yet freakin' again on the Saturday 06-07 weekend.
Oh, and it also rained heavily and coldly during
those weekends to add an extra slap in the face. I know, some of you
would be like “oh, boohoo! Woe is you!” while some of you might
be like, “Sorry to hear that man, that must have really sucked!”
Regardless of where you fall, I'm not hear to expect sympathies,
pats, hugs and kisses, but to recap the scenario in
case you weren't following from last week. Another random thing: the
fact that I'm uploading a blog post on a Sunday is a very rare event.
I normally upload during the weekday.
What
Have I Been Doing This Past Week?
Not
as much as I'd like to. I did spend some time working on that
commentary I've been talking about forever, but then I decided to put
it on the back burner and focus on other things – like getting this
blog monetized! Sometime ago, I talked
about my plans to get this place monetized, but then dropped the idea
when I found out that you couldn't use your YouTube AdSense to
connect to your Blogger Blog, and have advertisements serve there as
well. Why? I was confused and disappointed about this, because one
would think that there would be seamless integration for AdSense
between the
Google brands, but nope! If you set up an AdSense account for
YouTube, you'll have to own your
Blogger
domain, as in buy one, in order to have advertisements served there.
Initially, you could choose to apply for AdSense with a free Blogger
Blog, but it would have to be chosen first as
your only choice
over YouTube or some other Google product. You
would
then have to find some other way to get AdSense on your YouTube
channel. Another thing is that you can only have one AdSense account
per person, so this can make things particularly tricky. Don't try to
cheat it, because when the payment threshold comes things could get
ugly, so just be honest and choose YouTube as your choice for setting
up your AdSense account,
and then monetize Blogger by buying a domain, or through other legal
alternatives. If you're
not interested in monetizing YouTube videos, or if you're not
interested in YouTube at all, then it would of course make sense to
choose Blogger as your choice. Given
the 2017 changes with YouTube Creators and advertisement revenue I've detailed in this video,
it'll take more work to get advertisements running on your channel.
How
Is This Blog Going To Be Monetized?
Good
question. To
be honest: advertisements on blogs are annoying. Like, really
annoying!
Especially for the ones that pop up, or the ones that play so many
numerous videos in the background. As a result, many ad-powered blogs
tend to load so slowly, and create a miserable user experience. Don't
get me wrong. I know they're a necessary evil, but too many people
and companies don't quite know how to utilize them effectively in way
that it'll generate good revenue, without critically sabotaging
loading speed. With YouTube videos, once you watch an advertisement,
it disappears and you're good to go, unless of course, the YouTuber
put more video advertisements along the video timeline. Let's just
hope that YouTube will keep it to no longer than 5 seconds for
unskippable video advertisements. Sounds a little extreme and short,
but again, user
experience and satisfaction is key! Alright
so let's
get to
the point and talk about affiliate
marketing.
“What's that?!” You may ask. Some of you very well know exactly
what it is, and are
perhaps even making
a reasonable or substantial income off of it.
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by
promoting another brand, person, or company's products. You do this
by finding a product you like and know much about, and earn a portion
of profit for each sale that has been made, when the viewer buys the
product from your link. The sellers (such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart,
etc.) provide you with an
affiliate
code that's unique to you, and you use that code to refer traffic to
the target site. There are tons of in-depth articles on this, so I
won't bore you any further, but if you've ever wondered why you see
some YouTubers or Bloggers talking about products such as purses,
phone cases, eyeliner, shoes, headphones and then you hear them
telling you about optionally checking out the links in the
description? These
are their affiliate links, that they get a commission off of,
whenever you buy the product through their links. Pretty neat, eh? Of
course, you do not want to sound like a sponsored, desperate
salesman, nor do you want to forcibly tell them to click on the links
so you can get some money. This is of course obvious, but just
something I'd shout out while I can. Be
honest about how you feel about the product!
Now, while I've been doing plenty of research on affiliate marketing
lately, I've discovered that there are tons of programs you can join,
but I also realized that you
can
join an aggregate network like Skimlinks, which saves you the time
from joining each and every program separately. There are pros and
cons to joining directly and indirectly. Some will insist it's better
to join directly, while others will agree that it's better to just
take a small cut from an aggregate like Skimlinks. You can research
this and be the judge. At the end of the day, I chose Skimlinks. How
did it go? Read below to find out.
Thank
you for applying to use Skimlinks on
atayoutubediscussions.blogspot.ca. Our approvals team has run an
analysis and, unfortunately, decided that your site is not suitable
for Skimlinks. Your site does not contain enough content that can be
monetized, and therefore Skimlinks wouldn't earn you a suitable
income. If you think that this was a mistake you can reply to this
email at any time. We look forward to working with you in the future!
The
Skimlinks Team
Queue
the sad violin
viola. The content part makes no sense whatsoever. If by content,
they meant engaged audience or views, then sure, but otherwise just
no. There is plenty of topics and content on my
blog that could very well be monetized, so their analytics must have
been looking at the extremely low view count on the blog. Part of me
was urging myself to ask for clarification of what they meant by
content, but then another part of me was like, “It's the obvious;
your blog just doesn't have enough products you've used and know
about,
to
allow you to chat about in details”
So what should I do? Honestly, I'll just keep searching and applying
to different networks until I get accepted. It's just part of
affiliate reality; not every network you apply to accepts you, so you
just move on until you strike the gold. I'm not one of those guys
that does unboxing or review videos everyday, so I mention products
when it's appropriate, and not just simply because I can, nor to add
“stuffing to the blog”. That's shady, and is a possibly violation
of Blogger's terms of service I believe. That said, I will try to
make it more advertiser/marketer friendly, but worry not! It will not
effect the quality of the blog, and will
remain relevant to YouTube.
So! I've planned to discuss the following 2017 phones for this entry:
HTC U Ultra, BlackBerry KEYone, Samsung Galaxy S8 and the 2017
iPhone. Disclaimer:
I
have not personally used any of these phones (c'mon, they're
expensive as hell!), so these will just be commentaries and nitpicks
based on the videos I've seen, articles I read, and pictures I've
taken
a good look at.
I am a smartphone
nerd,
and I like to commentate, so nothing should surprising here if you've
been following for a while! 1, 2, 3 – here we go now!
HTC
U Ultra
Unfortunately,
the HTC U Ultra has a
pretty bad reputation as being a “wasteful” phone. Why? Because
it has seemingly amazing specifications on paper, yet the hardware
happens to be missing 3 key functions that people wanted: wireless
charging, a larger battery and a headphone jack. Understandable.
Thankfully, it does have a microSD card, but with it's numerous
shortcomings and a
price tag of $999.00 CAD, that's a no go! Worse, it only has 64GB of
storage! To some that's a lot, but for that price, I'd expect 128GB!
My goodness, gracious me! Were they trying to make this thing flop or
what? The sapphire blue colour on it is gorgeous, but not enough to
make it justify its foolishness. Next!
BlackBerry
KEYone
Without
a doubt, this is the
most unique-looking phone I'm discussing of the bunch for an obvious
reason – the
keyboard! That's right, it's got a physical keyboard, but why? Why in
the day of candybar, slab phones, would someone make a phone like
this? To appeal to
users who want a
physical keyboard. That right there, is a
big issue: aside from some remaining BlackBerry diehards, I honestly
can't imagine Samsung, LG, Huawei, OPPO, Motorola, Lenovo, ZTE, Asus
and all others out there, flocking to this thing for the keyboard,
which is the only notable thing it
has going for it. Well, a lot of reviewers
are also reporting that this BlackBerry has a
wonderful battery life. So do other, higher specced' phones out
there. As someone using a BlackBerry device to date, would I buy this
phone? The answer is ------------------- no. Shocking? Not shocking?
I'll explain: this thing is running Android. While I obviously
have nothing against the Android operating system, I bought my
BlackBerry 10 device a few years back, because of the name, looks,
keyboard and OS
10
operating system.
For some, a modern phone with a physical
keyboard running Android 7.0 Nougat, is a dream come true, but for
me, it just doesn't cut it. Call me weird, biased or nitpicky, but
it's just how I feel about it. Besides, I'll have you know that these
Android-powered BlackBerrys aren't real
“BlackBerrys”. I'll explain: you see, the BlackBerry DTEK50 and
BlackBerry DTEK60 weren't designed by BlackBerry, nor do they even
have their own operating
system
running on them. Some of you know this and don't care, some of you
don't. They're actually badge-engineered BlackBerrys that have the
licencing agreement from BlackBerry Proper, to rebadge certain
Alcatel phones and put their name and logo on it, while BlackBerry
sprinkles a little bit of their salt on top of Android. You see what
I
am getting at? I'm not saying that this makes them bad phones, but
when you dive deep into it, you realize that
BlackBerrys
truly aren't what they once were: original,
unique phones, from inside and out.
Now I know this was supposed to be somewhat “short” but now that
the opportunity has finally come to discuss this, I felt the need to
just spill my thoughts and knowledge on the situation. The BlackBerry
Priv was apparently designed by BlackBerry Proper,
as is the BlackBerry KEYone, which is said to be the last in-house
design. Some care, some don't, but BlackBerry OS 10 is dead, so if
you want a newer BlackBerry that has all the applications you've been
missing, then you'll just have to grab one of the newer handsets, or
a smartphone
from
another Android manufacturer. Of course, there's also the iPhone,
which I'll discuss later. Perhaps I should answer a “serious”
question before I move onto discussing the Samsung Galaxy S8: Should
you buy a BlackBerry 10 device in 2017? Only
if you don't need much applications, accept the platform for what it
is, and that it might
reach
its end-of-life this year. I personally
think that “KEYone” should be spelt as “KeyOne” or even
“Keyone”. The official spelling looks stupid to me. No word on
Canadian pricing to date, but it reportedly costs
$550 USD which translates to $754 CAD! You'd be far better off
getting something like an LG V20, OnePlus 3T or a
used iPhone 6S for less.
Samsung
Galaxy S8
I
know, I know. Too much people talk about Samsung flagships whenever
they come out, and to make matters more annoying to some, they tend
to call them the “best” of their class! Are they really the best?
No, they're one of the best, but certainly not the best. It's a shame
I didn't go out to get a
hands-on feel
before typing this, so I could tell you about how they feel, as I did
with the Samsung Galaxy S7, but alas! The damn sickness kept me
indoors for longer than I'd like. I had the opportunity way before
then, but it never crossed my mind. Anyways! Three things peeve me
about the hardware: 1) It looks a little too narrow. It should be
broader. 2) They got rid of the capacitive
buttons! Argh! Why?! Don't manufacturers realize that it wastes a
little bit of screen estate when they do that? I much prefer the
feeling of clicking buttons, but it looks like most vendors are
trying to do away with that. Thankfully, not all... yet... 3) A Bixby
button! Seriously?!
As some YouTube reviewers have pointed out, this thing
is a
usesless waste of time and resources! Ok,
so maybe they did not say it so harshly, but I'll tell it as it is,
in case they were too afraid to. Seriously,
not only has
Samsung been trying to prevent
people from remapping it to another application with updates, but it
doesn't even completely work yet! Wow! What's the point? I, for one,
never use these Assistants, so I'd hate to have a button wasted for
something I'd never ever use! I'm not sure if someone has
come up with a full solution at this point, or if Samsung is still
being a spoiled-sport, but I hope they just give up and let people
choose what they want to do with their $1000+ smartphone. You read
that right: in Canada, this phone cost $1,035 for the regular Samsung
Galaxy S8 and $1,115 for the Samsung Galaxy S8+. Can you say - SKY
HIGHHHHHHHHHH?! Yes, you can! Oh, and I almost
forgot to mention the non-removable battery! Yes, this is still
considered a flaw that I wish would go
away!
As
I've mentioned sometime back in one of my entries or videos, you do
not need to make the battery non-removable to guarantee
water-resistance. That's
false.
Need proof? Just look at the Samsung Galaxy S5 or the Kyocera
DuraForce XD for legitimate evidence. Despite the few hardware flaws
and sky-high price tag, it still remains
a very
solid choice for a 2017 Android Flagship. In case I haven't said it
already, it's also gorgeous to look at. I just wish that Samsung
would stop trying too hard to build their own massive ecosystem
(TouchWiz!) on top of another ecosystem (Android!) that already does
the job just fine. It's no wonder their phones lag so badly after a
while, and it's not just them that's guilty of this, but others too.
To date, I know the Google Pixels are of course unskinned, and I
believe Nokia uses an unskinned version of Android too. If they want
people to use Samsung applications and resources so badly, then spill
that effort, time and Samsung Applications onto
Tizen, and transform it into a polished, alternative operating
system! Seriously,
rather than have Tizen sit as a
2nd
class, hobby project that's highly susceptible to malware, and has
been absent from high-end phones, put it to good use and quit horsing
around! Don't want to take it seriously? Then just axe it, save your
money and resources, and free-up your current Android phones from
your heavy skin! Again, this entry turned out to be pretty long, but
I said my piece and feel satisfied. So! Which should you buy? The S8
or S8+? Buy the S8+. It has more screen estate and a bigger battery
than its smaller sibling, yet retains all the other good
specifications.
LG
G6
Ah,
LG. The brand that's often seen as the 2nd
option to Samsung. How do I feel about the LG G6? Well, I have mostly
positive thoughts actually. For one, I like that they finally
made
the G series larger than 5.5” (13.97cm)! About time! One thing I
hated about the LG
G5 was that they made it so tiny and ugly. Not this time around! They
made it large and nice looking. It looks really premium, and it
actually has some decent thickness that has allowed them to fit in a
respectable
3300mAh battery. Unfortunately, they just had to make that battery
non-removable, but we can hope that the more niche LG V30 won't be
worried about looks, and will fit in a removable battery while
sacrificing a little glamour. Time will tell. Oh, then there's the
dual camera setup! A lot of YouTubers have praised the dual lenses
for not only their functionality, but also their image quality. The
photos that come out of this thing are so good, that it ranks up
there with the camera bosses like the Samsung Galaxy S8, iPhone 7,
Google Pixel and a few others. With all this said, what would I
change about this phone? Well, hardware-wise, I'd probably make it a
little broader, change the virtual buttons to capacitive buttons,
bring the volume buttons back to the back, and make the battery
removable. I know, some would criticize me for saying that you'd make
the phone look “dated” but that does not have to be so! You can
make a phone, thick, stylish and functional, but almost nobody tries
these days. Also, it's important to mention that even though this is
a 2017 flagship,
a lot of people have singled out LG's decision to go with Snapdragon
821 versus the newer, “more powerful” Snapdragon 835. Truth is,
they're both high-end chips, and most YouTubers honestly said that
they couldn't notice much of a difference. That
right there, tells you that you shouldn't be concerned about it being
noticeably slower than Snapdragon 835.
Well, the average shopper doesn't care much about chips anyway, but
some people do, so it's important to mention this. Like Samsung
phones, people say that LG phones are also notorious for aging poorly
(slowing down!), thanks to their mighty thick skin they run on top of
Android. Never used one extensively, so I wouldn't know, but the
numbers that have complained about both brands in this regard, speaks
volumes about the situation. Of course, you have plenty of tips,
tricks and guides to speed up your Android phone, but it would've
helped if they'd just keep the clutter out in the first place. Oh,
and if there's two more negative things I should mention about this
phone, is the Canadian price tag of $800-$900 and the fact that
the
North American versions only have 32GB of internal storage! Seriously
LG?! Why?! Why not make all versions
have 64GB? Sure, you can try to import it from a region that will
carry the bands to make it have 4G LTE, but there's no guarantee you
will get that everywhere
you go,
and then there's also other hurdles that can crop up, so LG just
messed up there. They better give all regions a 128GB LG V30 to make
up for this! Anyways, despite the nitpicks I have with this phone,
it's still an attractive piece of art, but I'd personally choose the
Samsung Galaxy S8+ if given a strict choice between these two.
iphone
7, 7S and 8
iPhone
7S? iPhone
8?! What's going on here?! Which one's supposed to be coming out this
year?! To be honest with you, I don't know. I was thinking that it
would be the iPhone 7S, but then you see all these rumours and what
not, pointing towards the iPhone 8, so I'm not sure any more. We'll
know in a few months from now, so let's just talk about the iPhone 7
– wait! Unfortunately, I'm not a huge iPhone guy and I haven't
watched many YouTube reviews on this thing, so I'll just
focus on the
glaringly obvious things I don't like! #1 No headphone jack. I know.
A very original complaint, but I'm not the only one! Even iPhone
users found this move to be a dumb, controversial
move, and to this day, still remains a popular joke in many YouTube
videos and reviews. It is stupid. Period. Bring it back with the
iPhone 7S or whatever they end up calling it. #2 The button isn't a
“button”, meaning it's no longer mechanical or clickable.
Instead, it just buzzes to replicate that
feeling,
but what's the point? I'd rather just have a mechanical
button I can feel and hear clicking. Not some vibrator. Samsung,
you're guilty of this with your S8's too, but at least you have a
headphone jack and card slot. Speaking of that, that leads to point
#3 No card slot. The iPhone has never had a card slot, and I don't
understand why. Sure, you can now buy 256GB iPhone models, but then
that very same space has to be shared for both applications and
multimedia files like music, videos and photos. With me being an
app-heavy, photo & video maniac, I would much appreciate having a
card slot for my photos and videos. It's also safer, because if the
phone ever completely
fails,
you could just pull the card out to retrieve your files, as what LG
G4 and
LG V10 users have done when LG phones of that year suffered from
irreparable
bootloop problems. Yes, I know you can keep your files backed up in
the Cloud and what not, but what if you didn't? What if you don't
want to have to depend on the internet? What if you get hacked? What
if you just want the convenience
of removable, flexible
storage? See where I'm getting at? If you never thought about these
types of scenarios, I hope that this changes your view and outlook on
the importance of phones that possess slots for MicroSD cards. #4
Non-removable battery. Again, something iPhones never had, but should
have. I honestly feel as though they'll never bother with this, but
they should! Why not build a separate
iPhone variant that emphasizes ruggedness and removable components,
while keeping the current models for the mainstream? Now that I
strongly believe would give Samsung a serious run for their money! Do
it Apple!
You've got to try this at least once! #5 Price. Boy oh boy! For the
iPhone 7, prices range from $899 CAD for 32GB (ripoff alert!) to
$1159 for 256GB! But, wait! The iPhone 7 starts at $1049 for 32GB and
goes up to a sky-high $1309 for 256GB! Mamma mia! I need not say
more! With all the negativity aside, the iPhone 7 is still an
attractive phone, and has a powerful A10 Fusion chip that offers
phenomenal
performance. Let's not also forget the fact iOS ages so much nicer
than Android, and receives
updates in a timely manner. Something that Android users are still
complaining about to this very day, save for Nexus or Pixel users.
Buy the iPhone 7 Plus over the teeny iPhone 7. You get more screen
estate and a dual camera setup. Big phones rule!
What's
Next and Other Ramblings
Whew!
I sure had a lot to chat about this entry! So, if you've actually
read all of that and are still alive at this point, kudos to you!
Claim your white chocolate strawberry cheesecake in the link below.
Kidding. Anyways! I've finally
had
the opportunity to go outdoors this weekend, so you know what means?
New videos will be coming very soon! So
aside from editing the new videos on Monday, what else will I do?
Well, I'll continue my affiliate quest, work on that longstanding
commentary, and take care of other day-to-day things. Happy Mother's
Day once again, and God bless.
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