15. Getting More Out of YouTube—With Third-Party Tools

YouTube is a feature-rich website—so feature-rich, in fact, that it's sometimes difficult to find everything that there is to be found. This has led to a variety of third-party tools and services, all designed to help you get even more out of YouTube than you can from the basic site.

Indexing YouTube Content

To me, one of the most annoying things about YouTube is finding the best content. There's a lot of chaff out there among the wheat, and it's often hard to separate one from the other.

To that end, several websites have been created to index YouTube content. These sites organize YouTube videos by various criteria—typically by popularity or buzzworthiness.

The most popular of these YouTube index sites include

  • Best of YouTube (www.thebestofyoutube.com)—A blog that lists the current user-selected "best" (not necessarily the most popular) YouTube videos
  • IndexTube (www.indextube.com)—Shown in Figure 15.1, a Wikipedia-like site that organizes videos from YouTube and other sites into easily navigated categories—music videos, TV shows, comedy, sports, and education

Figure 15.1. Browse YouTube videos by category at IndexTube.

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  • SaneScreen (www.sanescreen.com)—A user-edited directory of web-based videos
  • Top YouTube Videos (www.topyoutubevideos.com)—A collection of the most popular and most buzzworthy YouTube videos
  • VideoRemote (www.video-remote.com/)—Organizes videos on YouTube and other sites by category: television shows, cartoons, anime, and movies
  • Vidspedia (www.vidspedia.com)—A categorized collection of the best clips from YouTube and other video sharing sites
  • Viral Video Chart (www.viralvideochart.com)—Shown in Figure 15.2, tracks the top 20 most-blogged-about videos on the Web

Figure 15.2. View the Web's most-blogged-about videos at Viral Video Chart.

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  • The World Internet TV Charts (www.worldtv.com/charts/)—Tracks the most popular videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites
  • YouTube Top-Rated (www.coverpop.com/pop/youtube/)—Shown in Figure 15.3, a "coverpop" with the 1,001 top-rated YouTube videos; hover over any thumbnail image to view more info and click to view the video

Figure 15.3. View a "coverpop" of YouTube's top-rated videos at YouTube Top-Rated.

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Automating YouTube Operations

Then there are the utilities and sites that help you automate various YouTube operations. These include

Figure 15.4. Create photo slideshow videos with the MemoriesOnWeb program.

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Info 4U

Want to cheat your way to higher page views for your YouTube videos? Then check out YouCheater ($10, cheatyoutube.awardspace.com), a software program that purports to generate up to 9,700 fake views per hour. Use your best judgment before purchasing.

Alternatives to YouTube: Other Video Sharing Sites

Finally, it's worth noting that although YouTube is the largest video sharing site on the Web, it isn't the only one. Several other sites let users upload and view videos at no charge, just like YouTube. Here are some of the more popular of these alternative video sharing sites:

  • AOL UnCut Video (uncutvideo.aol.com)—Part of the larger AOL Video site, specializing in user-submitted videos
  • Break.com (www.break.com)—Pays users if videos are featured on the site's home page
  • Dailymotion (www.dailymotion.com)—Video sharing with tags and groups
  • eyespot (www.eyespot.com)—In addition to hosting user-submitted videos, offers online tools for editing home videos
  • FileCabi.net (www.filecabi.net)—Specializing in unique and often bizarre videos
  • Flixya (www.flixya.com)—Video sharing with revenue sharing
  • Footie Tube (www.footie-tube.com)—Nothing but football (soccer) clips
  • Google Video (video.google.com)—YouTube's sister site in the Google empire, with a mix of commercial and user-submitted videos, as shown in Figure 15.5

Figure 15.5. YouTube's sister site, Google Video.

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  • Grouper (www.grouper.com)—Similar in features to YouTube
  • GUBA (www.guba.com)—Offers a mix of paid and free videos
  • iFilm (www.ifilm.com)—User-submitted videos and short independent films, organized by channel
  • Joost (www.joost.com)—Video sharing with tons of official videos from major media companies, including Viacom; offers a cool translucent interface for its videos, as shown in Figure 15.6

Figure 15.6. YouTube's highest-tech competitor, Joost.

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Tip 4U

Some industry analysts think that Joost will become YouTube's primary competitor, especially as several media companies have signed content distribution agreements with the site—while simultaneously pulling their videos from YouTube.

Figure 15.7. vMIX, one of many similar video sharing sites.

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Tip 4U

Looking to view and share adult videos online? Then check out PornoTube (www.pornotube.com) and XTube (www.xtube.com), two X-rated video sharing sites.

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