#20 I Tube, YouTube

Video hosting sites allow 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 serving up 100 million video views a day and allowing users not only to upload their own video content easily, but also 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 the rantings of two brothers to library dominos and how to charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion. 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.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore YouTube & find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog.
2. 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 components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?

OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog using the copy and paste code for the for "Embeddable Player.” Note: you'll need to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.

Other popular video hosting sites:

• Yahoo Videos
• Google videos
• Dailymotion*
• Metacafe*
• Others - top video site list

NOTE: Videos, like music downloads, are bandwidth hogs. It is recommended that you complete this exercise during light internet usage times.

*Edited to Add: We've received a report that these two websites are blocked by Queens Library. We'll submit them for review. In the meantime, enjoy these sites at home, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks to Library thoughts and musings for the heads up.