YouTube apps (for want of a better description) are clearly like buses; there are none for ages and then two come along at the same time. And the creator of one looks to have landed a job at YouTube itself. The lucky man.
Online Video Fun
Online video isn’t all about premium content and catch-up TV services such as Hulu and the BBC iPlayer. There’s also an overpowering fun element to the whole thing. After all, isn’t being entertained what we’re all after?
Just look at the success of some user-generated video clips. David After Dentist and Charlie Bit My Finger are two hugely-popular YouTube videos, and yet there’s not actually much to either of them. Except their fun slices of everyday life.
Two new third-party YouTube innovations show how online video can be used in entertaining ways.
YouTube Instant
is an effort inspired by Google Instant, which searches the Web as you type. The real-time search engine of YouTube’s massive archive of clips was created by Stanford student Feross Aboukhadijeh.
As with Google Instant, start typing and results appear instantly. In this case, videos which fit the search the engine guesstimates you are most likely to be looking for.
It’s fun for us, and for Aboukhadijeh it could mean a job at YouTube. Company CEO Chad Hurley tweeted to say he loved YouTube Instant, before offering the student a job on the spot. And he was apparently serious.
YouTube Time Machine
The YouTube Time Machine, meanwhile, is an effort to organize YouTube videos by year in order to allow users to relive a certain point in history. Via online video clips, naturally.
The YTTM database of 4,000 videos strong, with all having been searched for and collated manually. Specify which year from 1890 to present day that you’re interested in, narrow down the genre, and away you go.
The videos appear randomly, as the YouTube Time Machine’s creators are seeking to allow people to recreate a particular year rather than find a specific video.
Conclusions
Both YouTube Instant and the YouTube Time Machine made me waste a chunk of my free time today. But that’s a good thing as they both entertained me. Which is the main ingredient I’m looking for from online video.
