The Weekly Sam: Making Creative Use of YouTube By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
I recently discovered YouTube, this incredibly fascinating Web site that shows hundreds of
thousands of video clips from all over the world, produced by ordinary people. Launched in
May 2005 by two young geeks, Steven Chen and Chad Hurley, the site now pumps out over 100
million short video clips—ranging from 1 to 30 minutes or more—and takes in as many as
65,000 new ones every day. It draws more than 34 million viewers a month. I assume it must
be a favorite site with homeschoolers, since many of them have produced a great variety of
video clips. Take a look and add one of your own.
According to Forbes magazine (10/16/06), Steven Chen, born in Taiwan, studied at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Hurley was a design major at Indiana University
of Pennsylvania at Indiana, Pennsylvania. They met at Paypal, the online payment site acquired
by Ebay in 2002, and formed a partnership to launch YouTube.
They conceived of YouTube after experiencing frustration when they tried to swap, online,
video clips from a party they had attended. Their aim was to keep the site simple enough so
that amateurs could use it. They used their credit cards to finance the scheme, until the site
grew so big that they had to seek financing from venture capitalists. They were able to raise
$3.5 million from Sequoia Capital.
The great potential for profit will not come from those who submit video clips, but from
advertisers. But how do you insert advertising in YouTube? That’s where the creativity of
YouTube’s founders have come into play.
But for homeschoolers with camcorders, YouTube provides a wonderful way to reach
thousands of people—homeschoolers and others around the world at practically no cost.
That’s how Ron Paul reached thousands of potential contributors. YouTube is also a wonderful
way to take a trip around the world. Just type in the name of any city or country on the globe
and someone will have sent in a video clip about that place.
There are many video clips on Global Warming from different points of view. You can make up
your own mind. Or write in Havana, Cuba, to get a glimpse of what it’s like in the Communist
dominated city. I got a great kick watching a wonderful half-hour interview of journalist Mark
Steyn at UC Berkeley.
If you are a lover of classical music, you can watch the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra play
Holst’s spine-tingling Jupiter led by an emotional Japanese conductor, or watch exuberant
Leonard Bernstein conduct Tchaikovsky and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, or watch aging Sir
Edward Elgar conduct Pomp and Circumstance. And you can actually watch the great
performance of the legendary Jacqueline du Pre playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto with young
conductor Daniel Barenboim leading the orchestra. What an incredible treat! The musical clips
alone are a tremendous source of great entertainment. Of course, don’t expect high definition
TV from some of these old clips.
There are also many fascinating clips on religion: Christopher Hitchens in debate with Denesh
D’Souza on the existence of God; Hitchens addressing the Atheist Alliance conference; a brief
interview with 84-year-old Antony Flew, atheist convert to deism; stories of Muslims converted
to Christianity (Muslims4Jesus).
One can easily spend hours browsing among the thousands of video clips. The clips note their
running times and the number of viewers who’ve seen them, plus viewers’ comments. Anyone
can join and start sending in clips. You can start as amateurishly as you’re likely to be, and
develop better technique in future endeavors.
“Video democracy is here,” Chad Hurley says, “and falling costs of transmission and a growing
audience eager for the offbeat have empowered anyone with a laptop to create, review or alter
almost any piece of digital entertainment in competition with the big guys. Hollywood will
always bring great content,” he adds, “but amateurs can create something just as interesting—
and do it in two minutes.”
Once homeschoolers know that you are on YouTube, you’ll draw more and more viewers. So
make your videos interesting and relevant. Do a video of a homeschool convention in your
area. Or show off the sights in your home town. Or interview an author or politician. Why not
show off your favorite hobby?
YouTube is also an incomparably fascinating source of information. Take advantage of it, and
get on the high-techie road to video creativity.
(The above article was written about 15 years ago. YouTube is an excellent source of information. Camp Constitution has a channel with close to 17k subscribers, over 1,500 videos and close to two million views. We have many videos of Sam Blumenfeld. Please subscribe and share our content: https://www.youtube.com/@CampConstitution
