YouTube
Within the past year, online video hosting sites have exploded allowing users to easily to upload and share videos on the web. Among all the Web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is currently top dog. The site streams over 100 million video views a day and allows users to upload their own video content easily and embed clips into their own sites easily.
Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You'll find everything from 1970s TV commercials and 60s music videos to library dominos and TV show clips. YouTube has become so popular that professional filmmakers are using it to distribute their work. (See Lonelygirl15's channel as an example--these videos seem to be a videoblog, but are in fact scripted short films about a fictional character known as Lonelygirl15.) Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself what the site has too offer. :)
Podcasts
The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.
In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last 24 months, it's easy to see why.
Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 program) to much longer in-person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker.
iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple is the directory finding service most often associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunesinstalled there are still plenty of options. There are many more podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, don't require a software download:
- Podcast.net
- Podcastalley.com
- Yahoo Podcasts - which, regrettably, is closing down on October 31st.
Since podcasts use RSS technology, once you find a podcast you like, you can easily pull its RSS feed into your Bloglines account, so that when new podcasts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence. Neat!
Discovery Resources
Part One: YouTube
Of course, there are other popular video hosting sites besides YouTube. Here are a few if you'd like to explore them, along with some other interesting YouTube-related links.
- Yahoo Videos
- Google videos
- MySpaceTV
- Wikipedia's YouTube entry
- YouTube's official blog
- 2007 YouTube Video Award winners
Part Two: Podcasts
To find out more about podcasts, start with Yahoo's What the Heck Is a Podcast? tutorial, What is A Podcast and How Can I Use One, or even the Wikipedia entry on podcasting.
What? You want to learn how to be a podcaster too? Here are some optional resources for those who want to learn create podcasts:
- Yahoo's Publish a podcast - Get it while it's hot! This excellent article probably won't be available when Yahoo Podcasts signs off on October 31st.
- Podcasting for DumDums: How to Create Your Own Podcast Without Any Technical Knowledge
- Odeo Studio – online recording studio.
- How to Podcast: Four Basic Steps
Discovery Exercise
Part One: YouTube
Explore YouTube & find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog.
Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features or componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites? (NOTE: Videos are bandwidth hogs. It is recommended that you complete this exercise during light Internet usage times so the video will have the best chance to play properly!)
OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog by copying and pasting the "Embed" code for the video, which is just to the left of the player on YouTube. (Note: Be sure to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.)
Here’s an example of what it will look like. This is a video (posted by CCPL's Media Services) that we embedded that shows Papa Robbie and S.W.A.T. performing at this year's Local Blend series.
Part Two: Podcasts
Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library-related podcasts like book review podcasts or library news. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?
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