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Article Title: Online Video Sites Scratch Your Niche
By: Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
God Tube
In my post about online television a few weeks ago, I wrote about why I don’t enjoy watching television on the Internet. One of the reasons is that a big video-sharing site such as YouTube has thousands of different kinds of content jumbled together in one place, making it hard to find the content I want. Why should I have to sift through old episodes of “Desperate Housewives” when what I really want is that dog on a skateboard video?
While YouTube does have its content somewhat organized (and they actually call the categories “channels”), it’s not easy to find what I want and not see what I don’t. I want to separate the wheat from the chaff, if you will, as well as be able to see a certain kind of content. A good example would be that I avoid Fox News on my TV, so I should be able to access content in a Fox News-free zone like I do with the old boob tube.
Apparently others have identified a need for this level of specialization and have gone off to create spinoffs of YouTube for specific audiences. Now there’s a video-sharing site for every lifestyle. From pets to God to geeks, there’s something for everyone. I’m just not sure I’m happy that I’m getting what I asked for…
The Religious Channels
A lot of content you find on most video-sharing sites could be considered “objectionable” by more conservative users. Thank God, then, for GodTube. As the name suggests, the content on GodTube is made for and by Christians. GodTube CEO Chris Wyatt said in an interview with Fox News recently that the site is there to “advance the gospel using Web 2.0 technology.”
What’s at the center of all of the content? God. From arguments debunking Darwin to, bible-praising rap videos to funny church moments, it’s all Christ, all the time. Unfortunately, that comes with videos featuring a healthy dose of anti-Muslim rhetoric and a whole lot of judgment. What would Jesus do?
IslamTube, as one might guess, presents content from a decidedly different point of view. Or so I’m told, as the site has been hacked and now displays the defiant image of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic.
Yideoz, a video-sharing site for Jewish-related content is, thankfully, a lot more light-hearted. Some of the more popular videos include the cute Feed Me Bubbe series, in which a guy videotapes his charming grandmother making his favorite recipes. While you can learn about Torah and study Hebrew, the content is less than controversial. Think Bubbe or something else is inappropriate? You can flag the video as “unKosher.”
JewTube, another small site for videos related to Jewish culture, is a bit edgier. There is a military channel with videos related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and a channel called “Hebrew Hotties” where users profile Jewish women they love, among them Hollywood actresses.
ScienceTube
Let’s face it: Most of the content found on YouTube is pretty inane, and there are some major smarties out there who want a site where they don’t have to see Drama Prairie Dog and would prefer a Mouse Protein Subcellular Localization Database. For that there’s SciVee, a site “created for scientists, by scientists, [which] moves science beyond the printed word and lecture theater taking advantage of the Internet as a communication medium.”
SciVee is operated in partnership with the National Science Foundation and the Public Library of Science, and on it scientists can upload videos explaining their research, as well as share papers with other scientists in their related fields of research. SciVee’s scientist users can comment on the research of others and tag their own research with keywords such as “amino acid” or “proteomics.”
The idea of sharing information between researchers for the betterment of the field made me think of doctors, and how a service like this might be useful to them. Before I could get dollar signs in my eyes, I found that such a site already exists: The Doctor’s Channel, a new site for physicians, features videos on topics ranging from the treatment of Hepatitis C to CPR and defibrillation.
Another science-related YouTube clone, SciTalks, focuses more on lectures related to scientific topics rather than research and publications. On SciTalks, you can hear astronaut Rusty Schweickart warn about the imminent threat to Earth posed by asteroids, or watch broadcast clips from PBS Nova’s episode on frozen frogs. While SciVee is a true YouTube clone, SciTalks is more of an aggregator, redirecting users to the sites where the video is actually housed (Google Video, YouTube, etc.).
Me-TV
Just like the traditional cable access channel on regular TV, some niche video sites are focused on self-promotion. Some might remember Bambi Francisco as a TV personality and web journalist at MarketWatch. In April of this year, Francisco left her high-profile journalism job to become an entrepreneur. Her new endeavor is a YouTube-like site for inventors called VatorTV. Less “American Inventor” and more elevator pitch, VatorTV is not about entertainment but about getting funding for your new startup, such as a MySpace clone for movies. Vator provides a platform for that, and with Francisco’s contacts, it’s a good bet she already has all sorts of venture capitalists eyeing the pitches.
FanCovers.com
An Internet version of karaoke (a.k.a. my own personal online nightmare), FanCovers.com is a video-sharing site for aspiring artists who post videos of their covers of popular songs. Get schooled on guitar chords for a Guns N’ Roses hit or watch a guy cover the Beatles in his living room.
Best of the Rest
There are so many of these sites that it’s tough to cover all of them but following are a few that have caught my attention:
PawShow: As much as I try to avoid YouTube pet videos, there are some people who only want to see animals doing cute or zany things. For them there’s PawShow, a video-sharing site for pet owners and animal lovers.
Rouxbe: As a fan of food media, this one I actually find useful: Rouxbe is a video-sharing site for recipes. On it, you can watch demonstrations of simple recipes such as homemade mayonnaise or more elaborate multi-ingredient dishes. Rouxbe is different from most video-sharing sites because, as it currently stands, the videos seems to all be professionally produced. The community of contributors currently only features three people and all are professional chefs.
TeacherTube: Another site that seems to be more useful than most is TeacherTube, which is — you guessed it — video sharing for teachers. On it, educators can share videos of their classes, lessons and other material with others in their field, or with home-schooled students. Of all the sites I looked at, TeacherTube seems to be the one with the most varied content and one of the most viable ideas with regard to its niche.
The inevitable question is: Do we need all of this? And is innovation really innovative when it’s a copy of something that’s already been done? While I do think there is a need to segment online video so it’s easier to find, access and view, I don’t think a million sites for a million different tastes is the answer. While the content is easier to find, it’s not easier to access, as I can’t go to one centralized place to get what I want.
However, we are increasingly moving toward specialization and niches as Internet media consumers. I don’t know, however, if that means we’ll necessarily move away from catch-all services like YouTube.
My guess is that with the low barrier to entry — you can hire an offshore coder to make a YouTube clone for couple thousand bucks or even do it yourself — there will be more of these sites popping up, until we eventually run out of niches. The question is which sites will last and which will fade away after Internet TV becomes more like TV and less like YouTube’s jumble.
What do you think of YouTube spinoffs? Will they stick around or are they destined to fail? Which of the sites mentioned do you think has the potential for success, and which are your favorite niche sites for video-sharing?
Jennifer Woodard Maderazo is the associate editor of PBS MediaShift. She is a San Francisco-based writer, blogger and marketer, who covers Latino marketing at Latin-Know and Latino cultural issues at VivirLatino.
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of podcasts that focus on Israel or the Jewish world. Here are a few that are sure to entertain, educate and provoke, too.
Nextbook, “A gateway to Jewish literature, culture, and ideas” has created a wide-ranging podcast to complement its impressive website. Recent offerings include:
• An interview with Cory Kahaney, whose off-Broadway show pays homage to Jewish female comedians of the 1950s, including Totie Fields and Jean Carroll;
• Alex Halberstadt explains how in the early 20th century Yossele Rosenblatt became the world’s most renowned cantor;
• And we meet “Captain Jack” Johnson and find out how he “contributed to Jewish statehood” when he signed on as a second mate on the ship Exodus in 1947. [tinyurl.com/323ytg]
Perhaps the sweetest podcast to grace my computer and MP3 player is titled 1-2-3 Jewish Kids & Me. The format is simple: an anonymous father and his equally anonymous daughter read aloud stories tied to the Jewish calendar. For Shavuot, we hear why Mount Sinai was chosen for the giving of the Torah even though it didn’t have the highest of peaks. [tinyurl.com/ 2wedg9]
Feed Me Bubbe takes the cross-generational motif a step further.
This delightful video podcast pairs Avrom Honig with his sweetheart of a bubbie, Bayla Sher. In recent episodes, she demonstrates the secrets behind her mouth-watering blintzes, kasha varnishkes, tzimmes, fricassee and the classic Chicken Soup Chicken. Bonus: the home page of this site has a lovely documentary about how this podcast came to be – along with a cameo appearance by zaide. [tinyurl.com/ 2vmb3y]
Long before anyone had heard of podcasts, Louis Brandsdorfer was recording his mother’s story of horror and survival during the Holocaust. Thanks to technology that has developed since those recording were done, you can listen to and download Malka Brandsdorfer’s recollections, The Bleeding Sky. She speaks Yiddish for the interviews and the free downloadable book is in English. [tinyurl.com/2hhhcy]
Rabbi Joseph Bloch and his wife, Yael, produce a regular and chatty podcast about current affairs in their country called Rabbi Joe in Jerusalem. In a recent edition, you can hear Rabbi Joe seethe over the small pension that was offered to Holocaust survivors in Israel. In other provocative casts, he asks whether Arabs are getting a raw deal in Hollywood, how modern Orthodoxy should treat the intermarried and whether sexual morality is still relevant. [tinyurl.com/zhe9j]
Meir Schweiger is also a rabbi from Jerusalem. But his podcast focuses on the weekly Torah portion rather than on current events. Rabbi Schweiger is a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. [tinyurl.com/ 3crotn]
Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Lafayette, Calif., wants to be part of Your Jewish Neighborhood through its podcast. Recently editions featured Cantor Leigh Korn on his travels to the tiny Jewish communities of Rhodes, Greece, and Dubrovnik, Croatia. We hear about the challenges in recruiting and selecting religious school teachers that match the philosophy of your congregation. And there is a feature interview with singer-songwriter Neshama Carlebach. [yourjewishneighborhood. libsyn.com/]
Does the news sometimes get you down? Then it may be time to subscribe to JNewsLight and what it calls The Lighter Side of Jewish News. Through short five- or six-minute podcasts, they survey some not-so-earth-shattering stories you may have missed. That’s how I learned:
• That a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed synagogue in Elkins Park, Penn., has been designated historic landmark;
• About Argentina’s last Jewish cowboys;
• How a 2,000-year-old date seed is growing in Israel’s Arava valley;
• And that actor Natalie Portman fought back tears of joy when she helped name a baby gorilla in Rwanda, while in that country with a group of celebrities and conservationists. [jnewslight.blogspot. com/]
Do you have a favourite audio or video podcast that you find yourself returning to? Tell me about it and I may mention it in a future column.
Mark Mietkiewicz is a Toronto-based Internet producer who writes, lectures and teaches about the Jewish Internet. He can be reached at highway@rogers.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .
Written by Jackson West
Posted Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 1:15 PM PT
Last year’s Vloggies awards show party was one of those watershed events where I realized, “Hey, maybe this online video distribution thing has legs.” The winners had all produced quality motion picture entertainment, and were innovators as well — everyone from Ze Frank to Steve Garfield, from Galacticast to Feed Me Bubbe. OK, Bubbe’s no world beater, but as a judge my duty was to sift through all the quality nominees, and in the process I discovered my new favorite cooking show — which, along with the other entries, convinced me that the time had come when independent productions had achieved a level of quality deserving of an award show.
This year, things are much more complicated. Irina Slutsky, who came up with the idea of the Vloggies and did much of the heavy lifting to make sure fun was had by all, is no longer with the event’s host, PodTech. And the project starring Slutsky, The Vloggies Show, has been canceled. While there may be a second annual Vloggies, it simply won’t be the same — save, of course, for the red PodTech banners. And as with any breakup, fans of the Vloggies and fans of Slutsky may have to pick sides, which is always awkward.
When Slutsky left PodTech, she also had to leave behind any claim she had on the name of the awards show — Vloggies is now a service mark registered in PodTech’s name. And there’s no guarantee PodTech will sponsor an awards show at all — there was a rumor going around that a night had already been booked at Mezzanine in San Francisco, but when I called the club to confirm I was told that they were still in negotiations. Robert Scoble, a popular PodTech network personality, had complained about the expense of putting on the fete in a note to fellow videobloggers in the infamous Yahoo group.
Slutsky, for her part, is determined to do something to celebrate achievements in online video. While details at this time are still sketchy, she’s asked people to make plans to be in the greater Los Angeles area on December 1st, and to beg, borrow or steal proper evening wear for the occasion. An official announcement is expected tonight during her appearance on Johnny’s Par-tay, a live video show featuring Johnny Goldstein and friends.
I’m sure the organizers of both events will, officially anyway, wish each other the best. My emails to PodTech CEO John Furrier and Valerie Cunningham, who helped organize the first Vloggies, seeking clarification on the company’s plans were not returned. Personally, I’d go to both if possible, but I’ll be on the East Coast, and if I have to attend one orgy of self-congratulation, I have to admit, I’m partial to the one that gives me an excuse to wear my Barney’s tuxedo in Hollywood.
Article TItle: YouTube Passes Along Tradition – or “Feed Me Bubbe”
Article By: Catherine
In every culture, since the days of campfires in cave dwellings, there has been a tradition of passing along knowledge by story telling. Along with the story telling might be a demonstration on how it is done. It is years of experience passed along by elders and rich with wisdom.
I know that the master story teller in our family is my grandfather, who has farmed all his life. To this day, he still maintains a vegetable garden along the sunny side of his house. How he knows when to plant is not by what the text books, almanacs or weather forecasts say. He will tell you and show you that it is by the feel of a spade-full of dirt. He can tell when he has the bit of dug up garden soil in his hands. It is how it feels and smells. It is the warmth of the soil and how it crumbles between his fingers. And the proof of the method is a wonderful, productive vegetable garden – every year – without fail.
With today’s pace of life and family scattered across the country (and around the globe), often that story telling tradition falls by the wayside. To preserve some of that knowledge and wisdom enters YouTube:
“…These days, Bayla Scher, a grandmother from Worcester, Mass. — along with many more seniors — is making and posting videos. YouTube and similar Web sites are no longer just for the young and hip. The older and hip are joining in the fun, too. These days, Bayla Scher, a grandmother from Worcester, Mass. — along with many more seniors — is making and posting videos. YouTube and similar Web sites are no longer just for the young and hip. The older and hip are joining in the fun, too.”
Article Title: Video Sharing for the Jewish Community
Spotted By: Bridgitte Raven
Could catering to niche markets be the next big wave in online video sharing? Yideoz, a new venture launched for the Jewish community, is banking on it by offering a forum for uploading and sharing video files that appeal specifically to this demographic—promoting cultural pride as well as providing a venue for expressing shared interests.
Like other content sharing portals, Yideoz makes its money through ad sales, so users can log on at no cost to view featured favourites or browse categories such as Food and Cooking, Friends and Family, Holidays, Israel and more. Members are encouraged to build profiles and network with others through the site—joining groups, posting comments and of course uploading their own videos.
Entrepreneurs looking to market to the Jewish community may want to check out advertising opportunities on the site—or even use it to launch targeted viral marketing campaigns. The broader opportunity? Be inspired to build similar web channels targeted to other demographics: social, cultural, political, GLBT, etc.
Article Title: Feed Me Bubbe Featured on ABC
By: Josh Cohen
If you know your matzah brie from your matzah balls and are at all familiar with online video, chances are you’re well aware of Feed Me Bubbee(Tilzy.TV page).
Started by the hyperactive, enthusiastic 23-year-old, Avrom Nehlig in May 2006, the online show features Bubbe – his chatty, endearing, too-cute 80-year-old Jewish grandmother – preparing tasty looking cultural dishes mixed with a bit of Yiddish and a lot of history.
The show has become an internet and cultural phenomenon, but for those unfamiliar with Bubbe’s kitchen exploits and the online video efforts of others her age, check out this Wall Street Journal article on using YouTube for purposes of posterity or watch ABC’s video version that aired on Charles Gibson this past Wednesday. As mainstream news coverage of internet video goes, the segment offers a surprisingly good summary.
Bubbe’s a jewel, Nehlig’s a mensch, and the show is deliciously good. It’s great to see it receiving this much attention off of computer screens and congregation newsletters.
In a cyberworld populated with pedophiles,white supremacists and Napoleon Dynamite fans, it’s nice to know there is still some wholesome family programming out there. NJB Avram Honig has pimped his bubbe, Bayla Sher, but in the best way possible! In Feed Me, Bubbe, the gregarious grandmother imparts her wisdom, culinary and otherwise, and in return, gets hundreds of thousands of hits, coverage on ABC News and in the The Wall Street Journal, oh yeah, and the satisfaction of knowing her recipes live on. We wish the dynamic duo and heartfelt mazel tov, even as we pray that our own mother doesn’t start to ask why we haven’t made her a Youtube superstar.
Senior citizens are taking making their presence felt and posting videos. Take this Jewish grandma who decided that even young people might be interested in what she has to offer….Maybe some chicken soup or some mandlebread?
Bayla Scher’s, who prefers to be called Bubbe, monthly podcast is called “Feed Me Bubbe.” In each episode, she serves up a favorite recipe (chicken soup and matzoh balls, tzimis, luckshen kugel, etc.) as well as a Yiddish word of the day —her way of instilling Yiddishkeit (Jewish culture) along with the culinary spiel.
Log on to YouTube and see video of the skateboarder who survived a harrowing 45-foot plunge during an X-games competition, or singer Beyonce tripping and falling during a recent concert in Orlando, Fla. Or go online and find 80-year-old “Bubbe” Scher dispensing recipes for her trademark jellie jammies. “Feed Me Bubbe” was the brainstorm of her 23-year-old grandson, Avrom Honig, who lives with his parents on the other side of Worcester. He wanted to do a podcast about something — anything — just for the experience, and came up with the idea of videotaping his grandmother in her kitchen talking about food — her food. Grandmother and grandson have taped and posted a dozen shows in the year since “Feed Me Bubbe” began last summer. Cumulatively, the show has had more than 200,000 hits, and has gained quite a loyal following, as revealed in some of the comments on YouTube. Stay tuned. The videotaped wisdom and experiences of experienced Americans are coming soon to a Web site near you. (abcnews.go)
Article Title: Feed Me Bubbe On ABC News
By: Rob Safuto
“Popular Blubrry podcast Feed Me Bubbe has gained some more national exposure with a segment on ABC News this evening. The angle of the story is about older people being involved in web videos. I hope I’m still rockin the podcasts when I’m 64!
Check the video on the ABC News site at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3459908.
