YouTube, widgets, and paidContent.org

One of the class assignments to start perusing and joining online community websites. I had created a YouTube account a while back but never had the time or felt the priority to have an account to upload videos or make comments. It was so easy to just visit the site, search, and watch videos (basically be on the sidelines) that creating an account seemed like a hassle because I'd be creating yet another login and password and adding to the long list of logins and passwords I had already created.

Tangent: Honestly, I wonder what's the average number of logins and passwords and how many websites people have people signed up for. There's probably a method of keeping track of all your logins and passwords (like using the same one or writing them all down in one place) but alas, I have yet to follow one.

The great thing about YouTube is that it is so user friendly. It's so easy! Search, sort, click, and watch. And it doesn't stop there... when the video is finished there's suggested related videos to watch, more videos from the same user, and comments. Great way to keep users engaged and coming back to the site. I'm pretty sure it's a common experience to spend hours watching what people have posted on YouTube.

Usually I go there to watch TV shows I miss. This week was the premiere of American Idol Season 7. Well, I think we're on 7 now. I was a die hard fan of Season 1 and 2... after that it was pretty much downhill for me. So searching for last night's episode actually led me to this young lady. She started by posting her vids on YouTube, she gained some recognition, has her own site now, has sang with quite a few big name singers, performed on Oprah, opened for Justin Timberlake... you get the picture. I dug her performance so much (you have to admit - it really is tough to sing live and without and voice/studio/digital enhancements) I watched more of her vids and even visited her website. And as Ed has asked for an example of a widget, I thought I'd embed her YouTube vid here:




I think before last night's class I had a limited view of what a widget was. Perhaps this was due to Facebook terming these as Applications or how I always thought of them from a programmers perspective and thought they were way more complicated than how they like look from the end user's end. But that's just another great thing about YouTube - copy then paste and wham! you got a widget. So easy! The only downfall tonight was that they were doing updates so I couldn't login and comment and all that good stuff.

I also took a look at paidContent.org. I first found out about the site a little while ago from Karen but always felt so set in my ways with reading google news that it never became too popular with me. I'm mentioning it tonight because there was an article on Facebook's Scrabulous and I know there are many fans of this application. Basically Habro and Mattel are trying to shut it down. I'll profile paidContent.org more in a later post I think I'm stretching the limits of website attention spans right now.

And the Recap: YouTube - it's so easy and free marketing; Widgets - easier to use and view than to program; paidContent.org - Scrabulous is going down