YouTube: Digital Media and Society Series

I thought that this book was an interesting read. It was a bit dry at times, but that was the tone that the book needed. If it was a book about viral videos, it could have a more playful tone, but no. This book was about YouTube as an entity, and it did a good job describing all of the different aspects of YouTube.

Despite the dry nature, the book did get me to think about a lot of things I normally overlook when I use YouTube. In chapter 5, it talks about YouTube being an "Accidental Archive of Culture," cataloging moments from different eras and storing them for later reminiscing. I look back on things from the 90s/early 2000s all of the time, but never realize just how much culture YouTube is actually "preserving," in a sense of the word. The book opened me up to simple ideas such as this that I wouldn't have normally thought about.

It is also interesting to look at the future of YouTube. The book notes how the website didn't have an identity or a purpose at the onset, and that might be true for a lot of these websites. The way that the site is evolving, with sponsors and other signs of mainstream integration, is very intriguing. Will that change the way that the site operates and affect the participatory nature of the community? Will they be able to sustain such a large audience? That remains to be seen. These are all questions that a lot of people are interested in, but not me.

I don't know if this is a book that I would have read outside of class. The dichotomy of YouTube isn't necessarily thrilling to me. Sure it has become a part of mainstream society and the media, but knowing its roots and criticisms and such isn't going to change the way that I use YouTube: watch funny videos, find music videos, and watch sports videos. That is all I really use it for, and the things in this book really didn't change any of that. It is a good read for someone who is very interested in the web, and it's still a good read if you're not. It is just a little boring.