video

According to CNN, Netflix has now overtaken Comcast as the largest video subscription service in the United States, with over 23.6 million subscribers. This not only makes them larger than the largest cable company, it also pegs their penetration rate at over 7% of the U.S. population.

This is yet another piece in the access-not-ownership path that media consumption in the U.S.  seems to be heading down. These streaming services will continue to increase in popularity as our broadband infrastructure and 4G wireless connectivity are built out. 

I posted yesterday on Pattern Recognition about a Long Bet that had been adjudicated on the topic of online video, and then today came across a post on the official YouTube blog about how quickly the amount of video that is uploaded to YouTube is growing. Back in March they reported that there were 24 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute. Incredibly, that number just keeps going up, and it’s now over 35 hours per minute.

As YouTube says in its post:

…2,100 hours uploaded every 60 minutes, or 50,400 hours uploaded to YouTube every day. If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), 35 hours a minute is the equivalent of over 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week. Another way to think about it is: If three of the major U.S. networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days.

Wow!

I’m going to be doing a series of videos showing off different lesser-known features of the iPad that are important for libraries and librarians. Here’s the first, looking at a little-known accessibility feature called White on Black.

 Google has been assailing us with new products in the last 6 months, but nothing I’ve seen has had the same OMG effect this video did. Google is calling this Liquid Galaxy, and it’s something between a Star Trek Holodeck and something out of Harry Potter. Eight separate computers are running this, and it’s being flown by a PS3 SixAxis controller. I’m just imagining GIS departments in libraries getting their hands on one of these!

Really amazing stuff.

Here's a great piece from the BBC highlighting Library as Place, and how important architecture, openness, light, and more make huge differences in the perception of the library. At Top Tech Trends this year I was fascinated by Amanda Etches-Johnson's take on architectural usability, and given that my place of work is in the middle of a huge new library building project, we're all absorbed by these concepts these days.