Week Nine and Ten - YouTube and Podcasts

YOUTUBE

Here's the Youtube account I created for the challenge.

I really like YouTube. I've found it really useful both for getting information and being entertained. When I want visual instruction on how to play a song on guitar, I can search for someone (anyone) who posted themselves playing on YouTube and figure it out form there. A lot of people also post TV performances and interviews I can watch if I missed them when they originally aired. YouTube is probably popular because it's so user-friendly.

I favorite'd a couple of videos. This one is a Japanese game show set in a library. I found a few library-related videos, but this was my favorite. I hope this isn't a real library though...


Speaking of Japanese game shows, try searching for the "Can't Laugh" ones. Also, the most amazingly silly "game show" I've ever witnessed.

I tried Google videos too and that was helpful in searching for videos on the web as a whole, but I found that most of the videos that showed up in the Google videos search were linked to YouTube anyway.

Most interesting thing for me to learn was that NBC and YouTube aren't friends. I tried searching for clips of NBC shows and all of them were removed from YouTube.

I think the library can use YouTube to reach the younger crowd. Maybe there could be a contest during the summer with Middle to High Schoolers making videos about the library or doing book reviews or book reenactments and we could post them on the library website and people can rate them and the best one could get a prize.

PODCASTS

I found three podcasts that interested me. First, was KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic podcast. This is a music show that airs on KCRW and features a lot of fresh music and live in-studio performances and interviews. I added this podcast to my Google Reader account because I don't listen to the radio anymore. I also listened to a "learn Spanish" podcast because I've been trying to learn. Lastly, I had a good time listening to MuggleCast which is almost obsolete now that the series is over (the Harry Potter series, that is). But they still talk about specific chapters and they have a couple of J.K. Rowling interviews.

I found libraries using podcasts for how to do better research in the library and updating on news and events. I think our library can use podcasts to make event announcements or talk about book reviews. Also, I think it would be cute to have a podcast every Sunday (recorded in advance...or Saturday evening) posted on the site that acts like a Story time for kids so parents can listen to them with their kids at home. You can include sound effects and different people doing the voices, etc. Maybe this would be good with fairytales.

That's my two cents. Or, seeing how long this week took, my fifty cents (in dimes).