President Obama - Your Turn: Join the National Online Discussion on Health Care Reform

President Obama is holding a live event through the Whitehouse YouTube channel this week (see: http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse). To submit a question all you have to do is reply to his video. Use your webcam to submit a 20 to 30 second question. This is an opportunity for everyday people to ask the President a question.

YouTube Channels 2.0

The YouTube blog for June 24 announced that the new channel design, currently in beta, will be applied to all YouTube channels starting July 15. In other words, our channels will automatically update to the new design on that date. You can switch over earlier if you wish. All new accounts are opened with the new design. For more information please read the blog post here: http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=gp6Wr8yTSvY

20 Hours of New Video Uploads Per Minute

YouTube just announced that 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute to their site. According to the YouTube blog post of May 20, 2009, there were 6 hours of video uploaded every minute in 2007 and video uploads per minute have climbed ever since going to 10 hours per minute, then 13, and then 15 this past January, and now 20. It is no wonder that YouTube is consistently ranked as the largest and most highly used video-sharing service online today.

Although YouTube has has been the repository of entertaining and sometimes ridiculous video, there is a substantial amount of content with educational value there as well. In fact, I have 150 subscriptions to channels that feature content that has some educational value for discussions, current events, or information. Over time, YouTube has grown to include a substantial academic audience. This summer in the YouTube for Educators course at Boise State University, we will be exploring this phenomenon. This is the second time we have offered this course, which now has a permanent course number so that it can be offered regularly in the future.

Online Video and Social Media on the Rise

The Nielsen Company has issued a new report called The Global Online Media Landscape: Identifying Opportunities in a Challenging Market that describes trends in online media use over the last several years.  It is primarily geared toward marketing and advertising, but there are some trends that should be of interest to those who work with online video or social media.

The report illustrates how the use of Web 1.0 offerings such as Shopping Directories & Guides and Internet Tools/Web Services have declined.  There is also a shift away from portal-oriented browsing and a preference for specialized content.  Usage of online video and social media sites has seen exceptional growth over the past couple of years outpacing other categories of Internet use.  

Here are a few findings from the report:

• Since 2003, there has been a 339% increase in the number of American users frequenting online video destinations and time spent on those sites has increased by almost 2,000%.  
• In the past year, there was a 10% increase in the number of unique users of online video, the number of streams grew by 41%, streams per user grew 27%, and total minutes engaged with online video grew 71%.  
  
• Since 2003, the number of social media users has increased by 87% and 883% more time is devoted to those sites.  
• In the past year, there was a 73% increase in the use of social media sites.  
• In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.

The report also noted that YouTube played a central role in the increase of online video use and it is currently one of the largest sites on the Internet.  

Learning About Swine Flu from CDC

The Center For Disease Control has recently been uploading a series of video clips designed to inform the public about swine flu. In addition to flu information, the CDC also provides a variety of health-related clips on the CDCStreamingHealth YouTube Channel.

The video clip below shows Dr. Joe Bresee, with CDC's Influenza Division, describing the symptoms of swine flu and warning signs to look for that indicate the need for urgent medical attention.

Encyclopedia Britannica Tube

The Encyclopedia Britannica has a YouTube site with about 25 clips very interesting clips. There is a total eclipse in timelapse, a segment on the causes of earthquakes, and a clip about plastic recycling among other things. They even have a clip of President Ronald Regan speaking at the Berlin Wall in 1987 when he uttered the famous line "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Who can forget that historic moment? Well, if you did forget or were not even born yet then you have a view of the past recorded in this video.

Library of Congress on YouTube

The Library of Congress website is a fabulous resource for digital artifacts such as historic film clips, images, texts, and audio and the American Memory Project is a long-time favorite of mine. I have gone there many times to explore old film clips and sound recordings.

The Library of Congress has copied some of these old films to their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress. In addition to this they have created several playlists of videos including: the 2008 National Book Festival, Books and Beyond, Journeys and Crossings, Early Films: Westinghouse 1904, and Prominent Scholars on Current Topics.

The following embedded playlist contains 20 old films produced by the Edison Company. Many of these date back to the late 1800s. At that time there was no corner electronics store to purchase video equipment and video rental did not exist. The people who made these films had to also invent and make their own equipment. Nowadays we can record video with our cell phones. Look how far we have come in the past century. I hope you enjoy watching these old film clips. More information about these old Edison films can be found here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhm.html