YouTube may be the best-ever time waster on the internet, but increasingly there’s less and less need to actually go to the site.
One reason is that in my surfing I regularly come across bloggers who are pointing to something interesting, informative or just plain silly at YouTube. In effect, they are serving as my editors, guiding me to stuff they find worth sharing. A recent example: David Weinberger pointing to the great Bush-Sunday, Bloody Sunday mashup.
It’s not just pointers, either. Part of the genius of YouTube is the share-this-video feature, which makes it easy to move the (still-YouTube-branded) video from their page to yours. Andrew Sullivan is doing that, announcing yesterday:
Here’s a new feature: send me your favorite current YouTube clips, and I’ll post the best every day. Keep them brief. Newsy and political clips will get priority, but, as regular readers know, I’m a big fan of dada moments, goofy bloopers, or just plain humor, or anything that makes you say “wow” or “ouch.”
All this is a win for me: I get to see the good stuff from YouTube without any extra effort, because I have some trusted guides out there doing the work for me. If they aren’t actively sorting through the huge video pool, they are at least tied in enough to pick up on the worthwhile videos, word of which spread svirally. They come to me as part of my regular surfing and YouTube still gets the credit. Too cool.
Good tip. I can’t be bothered searching Youtube daily for the best stuff. Now I just have to find some people out there who can do it for me…