The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When I moved back to Canada after two years in the Middle East, I couldn't get a handle on watching TV. I'll never forget the experience of turning on my TV and trying to watch an afternoon talk show. Within five minutes the people were yelling at each other and I was sitting, stunned, wondering where to run. Now with the satellite I have hanging on my garage, I have hundreds of channels pumped into my house, but I still can't find anything to watch. Now I have even more choices. Clip culture is booming online. With more and more people getting broadband at home, watching video over the Internet is booming. Last year, Flickr, the photo-sharing site, grew huge with thousands of people willing to share their photos, and now we have the same thing happening with video. It started with YouTube. This site has become hugely popular over the last six months. Home to over 25 million videos, 15 million of which are streamed each day, YouTube attracts over 10 million new viewers a month. On the homepage, viewers can choose a topic of interest ranging from sports, hobbies, science, videoblogs, etc., etc. From here, it is simple to explore the site and find videos that have been tagged with almost anything. Simply click them to play; most of the videos are under five minutes long and a short download. There are literally thousands of new videos posted on YouTube everyday. Like anything else on the Internet, 90 per cent of what is posted probably won't interest you, but there are gems hiding in all of the stuff. OneWorld TV is the same type of site, but with more videos that focus on educating people about sustainable development, and the lifestyles of people around the world. It has fairly high quality videos that can teach a lot about the lives of people in different countries around the world. Ifilm is a combination between the YouTube and OneWorld TV. While videos at Ifilm can be uploaded by anyone who takes the time to create an account, the site is also used by studios as a place to release movie trailers, and where independent producers put new, short movies online to get reviews from an online audience, so much of the quality is quite high. Two other sites trying something different are JumpTV and Total Vid. JumpTV is a subscription-based service. Like iTunes or other music sites, you can search for and download thousands of short films of all types. You can view the episodes for seven days for $1.99, or purchase the programs. Their specialty is short educational films ranging on topics from cooking, martial arts, parenting, to self-defense classes. Total Vid takes existing TV stations, many of them not accessible in North America (including the controversial Al Jazeera, the CNN of the Arab world), and places their programs online. Streaming video, completely free, and looking to expand their audience, there are plenty of possibilities on this one site alone. All of these sites are making the producers and directors of traditional television stations see red. Bring in the fact that Apple in the U.S. is selling downloads of many TV programs for $1.99 and you will soon be able to choose from a database of thousands of old movies, and the people who run these stations must not be sleeping much at night. Studies show that people are watching less and less TV and are spending more time online instead. Soon these two are going to be the same thing as more videos move online. This will change where and when we access our entertainment and will give us a lot more choice in where and when we do this. ([email protected])
