Item 21: Audio/Video: Video

The last of our audio/video section will cover the video arena.

Video sharing sites are a type of social networking site that focuses on video clips. As with all social networking sites, users create profiles for themselves. Users of these sites can upload video clips, share them, and try to get lots of people to watch their clips.

1. Take a look at these video sharing websites:
   • YouTube - This is the big one that makes the news, but there are plenty of other ways to share video out there, like…
   • blip.tv
   • MetaCafe - MetaCafe actually pays its users to upload videos. Well, sort of. People have to really like your video, but if it gets viewed enough it can start making money.
   • Viddler - add keyword tags to the video, like YouTube, but also add tags and comments to parts of the video (like flickr).
   • You Are TV
   • Revver uses an ad-based system to pay producers of popular content.
   
   
2. Try searching for similar things in each different site. How do the searches work? How are the results organized? What can you do with your results?
3. Check out this article at Resourceshelf that profiles some sites that help with the search process - try one of their searches and see what happens.
4. Try using a service like dabble to gather groups of your favorite videos from everywhere so that you can share a whole list, and ‘dabble’ in other people’s lists. Think of the collection development possibilities for libraries - YouTube and other sites are chock full of how-tos and craft videos, not just people acting stupid for the camera.
5. Check out these two science video sites: Sciencehack and JoVE. To read more about them both, see this Infodoodads post.
6. Explore other video related sites:
   • Jumpcut, an online video editing and sharing site - it’s newer than the other ones, but being able to edit video online will be a big bonus for many people or institutions who haven’t gone out and bought a video editing program for their computers.
   • YouPlayer is an add-on you can get for your Firefox browser that lets you drag and drop videos from any site into a list that you keep on your browser.
     
   • KeepVid, a site that allows you to download videos from almost any of the main video sharing sites. Not a 2.0 tool in and of itself, but an inevitable bridge between the many platforms out there.
   • Zamzar, an online file conversion site that allows you to convert files to different types without downloading software onto your computer - a great benefit for those of you who don’t have administrative access to your computer! Some video and photo sites only take a narrow range of file types, so you need to be able to convert your files from what you have to what they want, in order for you to post.
   • Joost is a different type of online video sharing site - it’s offering the content of many channels you find on cable television. Currently it’s in beta, so you’ll have to ask to be invited to try it out. Joost also requires that you download a piece of their software onto your desktop, so you’ll need some administrative access for your work computer, or consider trying it out at home.
7. There’s more to video sharing than entertainment - a lot of organizations and individuals create videos to help teach people how to do things. One such series, which focuses on how to use the pbWiki wiki software, can be found at Atomic Learning.

Activities:

1. Add some of the sites above to your del.icio.us account.
2. Look for something that interests you on YouTube or one of the other video sites. Spend a few minutes exploring (and we mean just a few - it can get addictive). Find a video to feature in a blog post.
3. Create a blog post. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Other possible topics: Can you see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites, or other ways videos could be used?