Thing #21: Podcasting

Something I already knew about myself was reinforced during this exercise: I'm so much more video than audio. I could waste hours on YouTube, but listening to people I don't know blather on is excrutiatingly boring. I did listen to one from http://www.podcast.net/ :
"Jenn Graham Likes Tagging; Thursday, November 16, 2006 ... This is another lunchcast from Byblos Restaurant in Getzville, New York." [librarians at the University of Buffalo talking about a trip to a local ACRL meeting at the time of the Great October Blizzard...nostalgia for me. I got my BA at UB. I remember blizzards. Not fondly.]

From http://podcastalley.com/
Couldn't stand to listen to another podcast, but noticed an interesting difference in these 2 sites. Top 10 podcasts in the latter include 2 about Harry Potter and one called "Blast the Right." The former lists top 10 tags (not podcasts) but 2 of the 10 are "christian" and "jesus." Something tells me each one has different audience.

Tried "libraries" as a keyword in all 3 and got different results. More overlap in the 1st two than either had with http://podcasts.yahoo.com/.

Did manage to add a podcast to my Blogroll--sure hope it works. I'm hoping something called "Crystal Clear Tolkien" won't bore me stiff.

I'm not dissing podcasts, just making it clear that different things work for different people. I think a podcast is best used as an adjunct to something else--narration for something visual; (like a PowerPoint or library art tour). Otherwise I suggest shorter is better, and that one should think long and hard about whether a purely audio medium is the best way to convey what one wishes to convey.

Thing #20: YouTube

When people ask me, "what are you going to do with yourself when you retire?" one of my stock answers will be: "Haven't you seen YouTube?" This is seriously addictive and a major argument for broadband access. The idea that I am actually required to "Explore YouTube" on work time almost makes me feel guilty. I'll try to do that embedding thing for the first one but just in case that doesn't work, take a look at:
LOTR: Saturday Night's Alright

I love this sort of thing. I know a lot of people who did these amateur music videos even before digital video editing software was available.
Matthew Gray Gubler: The Unauthorized Documentary
If you're saying to yourself, "Who the [expletive deleted] is Matthew Gray Gubler?" you haven't seen Criminal Minds. You don't have to have done so to appreciate these vids, however.

In case you're not sure, both of these are not serious.

What I like: tons of bizarre content. What I don't like: takes a little work to separate the good bizarre content from the stupid/crappy bizarre content. Library uses: might be useful to post teasers for programs or snippets of past programs to interest people in future ones. Might be tricky to deal with rights issues if a famous person gives the program. There's also the bandwidth issue--don't want to interfere with use and enjoyment of our site by those with slow connections.