YouTube, the privately-held video sharing website, now delivers an estimated 100 million videos a day to its users. The site has been online for barely a year. The explosion of Internet video in 2006 and the global increase in broadband subscribers means more and more consumers spend more time on the Web.
The Web 2.0 inspired phenomenon of short, snappy video delivery-Google, MSN, Yahoo, and others are following YouTube's lead. The You Tube phenomenon challenges assumptions about Web video. Soda explosions (Diet Coke and Mentos) and web videos have no place in business communications. Or do they?
By merely combining a pent-up demand for publishing videos, with ease-of-use you get the YouTube phenomenon. It's brain dead simple, that is all there is to it. The hardest part of the process is the user managing to get the video onto a computer where it can be uploaded to YouTube. Nowadays with digital camcorders and still cameras that shoot .MOV files it is not that hard and most cams come with software to make it easier.
Then comes YouTube. The first thing you notice about YouTube is the lack of barriers to entry. You can sign up quickly and upload anything in any format right away. YouTube's computers then transcode (convert) your files into Flash movies which can be played on any browser.
Now companies in the business world are beginning to use YouTube for internal communications and training. Universities are also using this medium for Webcasting videos for classes. The university of California at Berkeley is working with Google to broaden it's video presence.
The school has been webcasting videos of some classes for the last 10 years, but last year it started posting content on it's own Google Video site, and in iTunes. Click here for Berkeley's Webcasts . They had 4.5 million views during last school year.
Dr. Jean Claude Bradley a Chemistry Professor from Drexel, uses Camtasia video's uploaded to YouTube for his Organic Chemistry classes.
2 comments:
I have recently started to use YouTube to post quiz questions. You can fix it so that the thumbnail is the question and the video the solution. Response has been great so far.
Thanks for sharing this unique application for YouTube. I have also used Google video, and Blip.Tv for uploading my screencasts. YouTube has a 10 min limitation, Google has no time limitation (only file size), but the videos seem to be not as clear as YouTube. Blip.Tv has no time limitations, and the videos are pretty crisp. The cool thing is that all this is free of cost.
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