Week 9 - Thing #20 - YouTube and more

I think I may be altering this a bit later while I do a longer search of YouTube - full of mildly amusing, mostly amateurish, and occasionally informative videos. I'd like you to see the "My cat and turtle" video or maybe the "Lego Millenium Falcon Stop Motion" video or even the ever popular Keith Olbermann "Special Comment: Bush and Cheney Resign Now" video. But first, I am going to open a YouTube account and see if I can figure out how to place a video directly into my blog.



I guess what I like about YouTube is that, like so many Web 2.0 "things," it allows for anyone to be a star. It's anarchic and democratic. But like so much else on the Internet, there is an awful lot of junk, just really stupid, crude, even cruel videos not worth the thirty-or-so seconds it takes to realize that what is on the screen is not going to get any better and so just stop it and search for something else that actually might be worth it to watch.



I chose to watch the cat and turtle video because it's cute and short, and I didn't think it would involve cruelty. I liked the idea of the little turtle chasing the cat around, being very tenacious and just scaring the cat or at least annoying it. (I like cats but I like turtles too.) I watched the Keith Olbermann special comment because I wanted to see how something political or something of current interest could reach anyone signed on YouTube and interested enough to watch a ten-minute tirade. The Lego one I chose because I like animation, and I think stop gap animation, like claymation, takes skill and patience and can be enormously creative. However, it ended rather anticlimatically and amateurishly. Still, it was pretty well done.



As for YouTube's use in libraries, I'm not certain. Maybe general videos for training in various library activities (proper way to set up a program or clean a book or something of that sort) could be shared with the larger world via YouTube. I guess we could use YouTube for maybe some programming, and not just YA programming. I've seen some very amusing and relevant YouTube videos on books and the Web and the Internet, although I haven't been able to find them again. I also think a bit of humor can be fun too, so a blend of humor and libraries might find a place on YouTube. I suspect that most people look at YouTube as a means of entertainment, so if libraries used YouTube, entertainment might be the chief focus.



Now, let me see if I can place a video inside my blog. More later...