It's old news by now, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Since Google owns YouTube, Google was nervous about the transaction not going through due to anti-trust concerns. The sticking point apparently was the penalty fee Google would have to pay Twitch if the transaction didn't go through. After Google backed off, Amazon swooped in and beat out other interested parties.

Here's one of many stories you can read on the matter: http://gigaom.com/2014/08/25/amazon-is-buying-twitch-for-more-than-1-billion-according-to-reports  (Even though the linked headline says "over $1 billion", the reported price is actually $970 million.)

Yesterday on the cast, I announced the results of the August 2014 Off the Charts Viewer Survey. Thanks to all 30 people who shared their thoughts.

In a nutshell, people seem pretty happy with the way the cast is being run now. Most of you like the format, think the moderation is about right, and don't want me to get fancy with video effects. Demographically, about half the viewers are in their 40s or 50s and live in either the Eastern or Central time zones. I wasn't sure how many people use the Weebly web site. It turns out, a good number of you do, especially the various Playlist pages.

For those who are interested, I've posted the full survey results below, minus the ill-conceived question #16 which asked people to rank the website tabs. Your input will guide me as I consider changes I might make, or NOT make, to the cast going forward. Mostly it seems that status quo is the way to go.

This is not a joke. Please be careful. My guess is that there is an advertisement running on Vaughnlive that is really an attempt to infect your computer. Things like this happen from time to time. It is NOT the fault of Vaughnlive if this is actually what is happening, but VL does need to build in protections against this sort of thing. Sadly, that's the way of the world these days.

Here is what I just wrote and sent to contact@vaughnsoft.com. It explains what I experienced.

"Hi. Something happened to me twice today that is extremely suspicious and troubling.

In Chrome, I have a tab open to my channel page. I went to refresh the page after being idle for an hour or so because I wanted to see who is casting on the top bar. Instead of refreshing, I get redirected to a page with this URL: http://javaapx.com/us/down.php?sid=35&dv1=ad33-us&uuid=532ce73b-b80c-4273-5003-xxxxxxxxxxxx [author note: full ID redacted]

(The uuid number changed when it happened the second time.) I got a popup message saying I needed to update my Java to Version 7 Update 25. (Note that I am already using the current version which is Version 7 Update 67.) So why is it wanting to "update" me to an old version? I closed the dialog box with the "x" in the upper corner, whereupon the page downloaded a file called java_installer.exe without my permission to do so.

I did a scan with Windows Defender and with MalwareBytes. Neither scan indicated a problem. Nonetheless, I'm certainly not going to run a file like this, downloaded without my OK from a site I'd never heard of. (Actually, after this happened the first time, I went to the Java Control Panel applet and did my own Java update. I think it moved me from Update 65 to Update 67. When this happened the 2nd time, obviously I already had the official update.) I sent the downloaded file to the recycle bin both times.

The other thing that is interesting is that the javaapx.com redirect erased the history from the tab I was on. I couldn't "go back" to my previous URL which was vaughnlive.tv/gil_on_vl . That alone is suspicious.

My thinking is that some bad actor has slipped in an advertisement on vaughnlive.tv that contains this rogue malware. If this happened to me twice, it might be happening to other vaughnlive users who aren't as cautious as I am when it comes to things like this. Note that I have AdBlock Plus turned OFF for the vaughnlive.tv domain, so I do see the advertisements.

I attached a screen shot of the page that came up immediately after I refreshed my gil_on_vl page.

Is there any way you can look into this? This might be a big problem for some people."

Here is the page I was redirected to. (Looking at it more closely now, I notice that "andacceptedthe" is all run together. Things like this are a tip-off that the page isn't legit.)

Update 8/19/2014: I haven't seen this since August 7th, the day I reported it. Mark did get back to me but was unable to come up with anything definitive. I'll just file this away under "Unsolved Mysteries" and won't worry about it anymore.

I've been playing around with a survey creation website because I'm interested in what you all think of the weekly webcast. If you are either a regular or an occasional viewer of Off the Charts, could you spend 10 minutes or less to let me know your opinions? It's anonymous. Thanks!

JTV: gone. Just like that. I'm a little sorry, but not surprised. JTV management did a great job of running a formerly great service into the ground. Or maybe they just neglected it to death. Either way, same result. Does anyone remember Dylan saying he was going to take some time off this summer and then join JTV in the Fall? Whereupon I observed he'd better hope there still would be a JTV to go to work for by then. Looks like I was onto something.

The biggest personal downside is, now there's no back-up service to go to in case Vaughnlive has technical problems.

Update: I just watched the farewell video you can see at www.justin.tv . Craig made the video:

And here is the final image:

For all the "heartfelt" thanks given to the viewers in the video, and the schmaltzy music, how were the users treated on the last day? Was any advance notice given? Nope. Were people afforded the opportunity to save their contacts or channel graphics? No and no. They just pulled the plug. No notice. No opportunities for goodbyes. Yeah, they really cared about their users.