I had a surreal experience yesterday driving here in Sonoma County. My Bluetooth speakerphone rang and it was YouTube calling. How many people get calls from YouTube? The message was simple: I’d written a column critical of YouTube’s live Olympic coverage and they wanted me to try again.

“We’ve made a few changes,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

“What changes?” I asked.

“Just try it,” the voice said.

And so I did. And YouTube was correct.

The service is better for live streaming the Olympics. I can now reliably connect at 720p on a computer that couldn’t do better than 360p before. It’s still not perfect with occasional stutters and 1080p is still […]