Forget FEMA and television newscasters. How’d the web do for live coverage of Irene? Surely I’m not the only guy bored by our local coverage, as Yahoo Buzz puts “Hurricane Irene” as the third-most searched term on Yahoo (after the words Facebook and YouTube).
So how are we doing? Well the online-video coverage is varying about as much as the weather in the U.S. right now… from amateur (consumer generated) weather footage and news reports to the coverage of the Puerto Rico street shark, let’s have a look…
Remember that video curation was supposed to be all the rage last year and 2011? I’m still not seeing it get enough attention, but that will change as online-video consumption moves from desktop to simpler devices: mobile and remote controls. Why? Sans keyboard, it’s just not as easy to self-select videos, so we’ll need simpler controls (more Roku/AppleTV, less Sony’s 400-button, 2-dial TV remote control) … and better aggregators.
The answer lies in a careful mix of three (3) important variables:
crowdsourced (liked people like me),
editorial (someone whose taste I share) and
personalized recommendations based on my history/preferences.
In the meantime, I’ll offer a few favorite places that are directionally close, and invite you to add yours in comments (it’s participation time). Together we can perhaps create an aggregation of aggregators. A curation of curators. Then we’ll create a big ass website that collects them all, and we’ll sell $1 CPM banners on them and become hundredairs.
Reddit Videos: The kids at Reddit have good taste. Period. I want to be a Reddit influencer when I grow up.
Popscreen (which is kinda cool because you can search “now,” 7 days” and “30 days”).
eGuiders is a curated site, and I think I am/was an editor. But I forgot.
Martin Michalik pulls together the most viral videos on Viral Blog’s “Viral Friday.” At least you’ll know what to talk about on the weekend.
Zocial charts videos that are trending in social tweets/posts (Twitter, Facebook). Unfortunately I’d already seen most of what surfaced here.
YouTube Charts is a hidden gem on the website. It’s getting harder not easier to find recently popular videos, and instead becoming more “channel and theme” focused. But here’s YouTube “live” and here’s the page that should be more obvious on the website: the “chart” page which allows you to custom rank videos by category (humor, music), by period (day, week, month, all time) and finally by feature (most-viewed, highest rated, most liked).
Ray William Johnson culls together some “common denominator” clips in his daily videos, but I’m not sure if he’s catching viral videos before they’re viral or simply turning them viral based on his own popularity. Do you like him or Tosh 2.0 better? Hey Tosh, I was on Rabbit Bites 2 years before you, so suck it.