Datasheet

Seeking the YouTube Experience
When we told our friends and relatives about this book project, we received
mixed reviews. Some people thought the videos on the homepage of YouTube
were the greatest thing since the release of the Xbox 360. Our older friends
and relatives weren’t quite as enthusiastic. But there’s something for every-
one on the Tube. You’ve just got to be an ambassador and show your friends
how to find the stuff they want to see. That’s what we show you in this book.
Not everyone finds all of the top-played videos interesting. In fact, you may
find some of them repulsive. However, YouTube truly does have something
for everyone. If you set up a YouTube account, you can have it your way.
When you set up an account, follow some of our sage advice on how to search
YouTube and start looking for videos that pique your curiosity. After you
find something you like, you can save it as a favorite for future viewing and
create video playlists. You can also leave comments for the users who upload
videos you like. Chances are, they’ll be your kind of people, too.
YouTube has so much more to it than meets the eye — or, for that matter, the
ear. The intellectual highbrow type can find instructional videos on many
topics. The artsy-fartsy kind can find video blogs from film festivals, videos
from aspiring actors, and much more. The trick is to get past the home page
and start surfing the categories and channels. Another place to look for your
kind of video and your kind of people is in the YouTube Community section.
After you find what you like on the Tube, you can add the content to your
channel. Each Tuber with an account gets his own channel, and many people
like to make this space their own. When a fellow Tuber visits your channel,
she sees the first page of your channel. Figure 1-11 shows the public view of a
Tuber’s channel. Fellow tubers can dive deeper into a channel by clicking the
section links. A YouTube channel has the following sections:
 Videos: This section contains a list of videos the user uploads to YouTube.
 Favorites: This section shows thumbnails of videos the user selects as
his favorites.
 Playlists: This section features playlists the user creates.
 Groups: This section shows groups that the user joins.
 Friends: This section shows the people the user adds as friends.
 Subscribers: This section shows a list of Tubers who subscribe to the
user’s channel.
 Subscriptions: This section shows a list of channels to which the user
subscribes.
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Part I: Curtain Up on Streaming Video
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