Due to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that we have just added the ability to directly and securely use Visa and MasterCard credit cards for Graboid account upgrades.

You’ll now find that under the “Account” tab in Graboid Video you have the option to choose between either the PayPal or Credit Card payment options.

We hope members who don’t have PayPal accounts (or who don’t wish to utilize PayPal) will find this to be a convenient way to take their Graboid subscriptions to the next level.

American Express and Discover credit card-holders can continue to enjoy fast, secure and convenient payment processing exclusively through PayPal, and any Visa or MasterCard card-holders are welcome to choose to continue using PayPal, or to use the new Credit Card payment option.

Our servers were down from 6pm to 7pm last night. If you had problems during that time, it wasn’t the software. Apologies. Everything is working properly now.

Please note that technical support issues are addressed only in our tech support forum. Support issues relating to account issues should be emailed to us. All support requests on this blog will be deleted.

Here at Graboid, we’re looking for our next superstar developer. We’ve got a lot of features and projects planned and we’re looking for the right person to help us build the next generation of our software platform.

We pride ourselves on a fun environment, with exciting new challenges every week. So, if you’re a web developer proficient in PHP/MySQL and JavaScript, and you live or are willing to move to the Greater Toronto area, then please check out our complete job posting.

A couple of weeks ago I ranted about how my favorite shows all end up getting the axe, despite loyal followings of millions of viewers as evidenced on the ‘net. I specifically mentioned Jericho as being one of these unfortunate victims. Well, it looks like Jericho’s rabid fan base just won’t let the thing die.

The second season of this riveting drama ended a few weeks ago, barely getting a chance to finish it’s seven-episode run before being cancelled — again.

Now, it looks like Jericho’s producers at CBS Paramount are starting to realize that it may not be in their financial best interests to simply pull the rug out from under the 8 million-or-so loyal Jericho followers. They’re apparently working on a deal with cable television giant Comcast to revive the series yet again, and produce a third-season with Comcast footing a part of the bill. Comcast would then gain first-to-air rights to Jericho, before the networks at large have their opportunity to cash in. This is both out-of-the-ordinary, and quite revolutionary in what it proposes.

I’ve long wondered why networks don’t believe they can make money with properties bringing in millions of viewers. Why not shoot the show and put it online interspersed with ads or direct-to-DVD if the viewership doesn’t meet expectations? There’s got to be a reasonable way to profit from all of those unwavering eyeballs.

In this case, it’s certainly nice to see the industry start to reevaluate their funding and distribution options for content, and instead of dropping brilliant episodic material for more rehashes of “Survivor” and “American Idol”, finding an alternate means of bringing in revenue from the shows that we think truly matter.

To the corporations that control what we see, it all comes down to the dollar. Finding these new avenues for profit will allow for greater creativity and quality to survive, and maybe even flourish, in a market that is all-too-often about dumbing things down.

There may yet be hope for television. Until then, there’s Graboid Video.

We’ve had some interest in Graboid T-Shirts from our users, so we’ve gone ahead and opened the Graboid Store!

Within the store you’ll find everything from sweaters, shirts, clocks, and mousepads, to… thongs! *GASP*

Graboid Store Grand Opening Contest

So now’s your chance to show off just how much you love Graboid: The first person to send in a photo of themselves in their brand new Graboid-wear will get a free one month Gold subscription to Graboid. You can’t beat that for $8.99!

To participate in this contest, just send a photo of yourself in your new Graboid Tee (or other Graboid attire) to store@graboid.com.

Good luck!

UPDATE: The maintenance was completed in just over an hour. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.

Due to scheduled server maintenance, Graboid Video will be inaccessible for several hours starting at 10:30am EST, April 3rd.

During this downtime, you can still access all of your downloaded videos in your download directory (the default being My Documents -> Graboid -> Completed).

As for the reason for the maintenance, we are doing a complete migration of our database system to help future-proof Graboid against our rapid growth. We hope the upgrade will improve search times, service reliability, and overall responsiveness of our servers.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Graboid Team is pleased to announce the release of Graboid Video 1.2.

The improvements in this release include:
• Language Filtering — One of the most requested features, this allows you to display search results containing only the languages that you choose.
• A New Installer and Auto-Updating System — The installer has been streamlined, and the auto-updater has been rewritten from scratch for greater flexibility.
• A desktop shortcut is now automatically created upon installation.
• Many big bugs have been squished, particularly those involving videos not appearing in the queue or downloading properly on some systems.

Please note that Graboid Video 1.1 will not automatically upgrade to 1.2. Because of the changes we’ve made to the automatic updating service, you will need to manually upgrade to this version.

If you’re upgrading, we suggest that you first uninstall Graboid Video from your system, and then install 1.2 from scratch. Not to worry — all of your videos will be safe throughout the upgrade.

To download Graboid Video 1.2 please visit the download page.