Youtube.com Why was the Internet invented? That’s easy – so we could watch TV at work. The folks behind YouTube know that, and want to make it easier for us to do so. It’s not the only video clip website out there (Google Video is good, too), but it’s the most popular and the easiest to use and search. It’s also easy to post your own videos, which is what makes YouTube what it is: a community for people who want to share their stuff, whether it’s old MTV videos, classic TV clips, sports highlights or an upload from your video cellphone. To get ready for football season, Denver fans might want to check out the Broncos clips. There’s a great one of some out-of-town fans stealing a Broncos/Budweiser sign off a fence, though owing the the use of the f-word, it’s not a work-safe bit.
Flickr.com This popular photo-sharing website is great for posting your own pix for family and friends – or even to fish for critical acclaim of your prowess as a photographer – but it’s at its most fun when you consider it a voyeuristic window onto everyone else’s world. Wanna see how fellow Coloradans see our state? Do a search for “Denver” or “Red Rocks,” or maybe “Colorado sand dunes,” and see thousands of pictures posted by other Flickr users. If you find a photograph that really stands out, check out the rest of the photographer’s work. And if you’ve got something to share, sign up for an account – they’re free – and post your own pix. The site also lets you post comments on other people’s work, and contact a photographer whose work may have inspired you.
digg.com The Internet will never completely take over the news industry, but it’s certainly making its mark. And here’s a site the industry might want to pay attention to. Like Flickr and YouTube, Digg is a social networking site. Users post links to news stories – at, say, denverpost.com or a wire service like Reuters – and then rate them in terms of popularity. If you like a story, you give the link a “Digg” (dig it?). Theoretically, the stories that interest people the most have the most Diggs. The site is still new and not very comprehensive, and it leans a bit toward geek news – technology, science, gaming – but it’s expanding. As it grows, “old media” news execs may want to drop in occasionally and check out what kind of stories are getting the most Diggs.
– Cohen Peart
CLICK, READ and WATCH
“The 9/11 Commission Report,” detailing security failures that allowed terrorists to fly jets into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon five years ago, was a best seller when it was released in book form in 2004. Two new projects highlight the drama. Writer Sid Jacobson and illustrator Ernie Colón use a comic- book format to retell the story with powerful, moving results in “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation.” The book comes out next month, but take a look now at slate.com, where a chapter will be released daily through Sept. 7. The report, along with other published material and personal interviews, has also been dramatized in the ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” which airs Sept. 10 and 11. – Linda Shapley
