GodsendJen

This morning a friend was kind enough to turn me on to YouTube.  Despite the enthusiasm of several friends I just hadn't gotten into the online video craze.  Sure, they are sometimes interesting, but is it ever really worth digging through the crap to get to the good content. I don't know that YouTube is different, but I like being able to:

• Search for Videos by their "Tag." A tag is a keyword, and I've found "Humor" and "Comedy" to return excellent results. I found entire ComedyCentral specials from Stephen Lynch, Adam Ferrara and Ron White.
• When you watch the video you are given a list of related movies, ala Amazon. People who liked this movie also liked... The other videos typically have the same Tags or submitters.
• The search feature actually works.  I did a search for "Family Guy" and it returned a 2345 videos, and almost all of them were Family Guy episodes.  The exceptions were personal videos that members had titled Family Guy.
• Any member can upload videos, of just about anything that isn't "illicit." They have video blogs and sections of family videos.  I don't particularly care to go around watching videos of other people kid's throwing their food.  But if my sister uploaded videos of my nephew playing with all the toys I bought him....well that I'd watch.
• They have an API.  I don't know that I'll bother doing anything with it given that I'm not much of a videographer.  But if I had a video camera and kids I'm sure I'd cover this site with videos conveniently hosted for free over at YouTube.
  

Of course, with the good comes the questionable.  These videos are uploaded by members.  I somehow doubt those 2345 Family Guy listings are there with the permision of Fox. Because the people who capture and upload these are not professionals there are quality considerations.  I've enjoyed listening to the stand-up comedy while working on other things, but I don't know that watching the videos would entirely thrill me. Finally the download stream of videos still isn't where I'd like it to be.  Most of the videos I loaded played with no hitch. But occasionally there is lag and you watch a video at a greater speed than it is downloaded.  Then you have to stop and wait for the video to catch up.  This is especially frustrating mid-joke.

If you are bored and want a good laugh, check it out for yourself. YouTube.com