User:Thelink

This is kind of like a 5 or 10 year project: Every 3 months or so, I will publish just one single big link on this page. This link would be, in my humble opinion, the most relevant link throughout the internet for that time.

Imagine that you plan to live under a rock for 5 years, and then, when you come back, you'd like to just be able to check one site, one single address to see what is the hottest thing right now. And you could trust and be sure that this site would still be alive in 5 years and it would still be updated. This very page here would be this place. And of course, if you don't live under a rock, you're also welcome here. Click watch to add this page to your watchlist!

By the way, this is my page, please don't edit it (except typos), but you're very welcome to say hi on the talk page.

So, without much further ado, here we go...

January 10, 2006

http://video.google.com/

Google Video is not brand new, and this is not about the upcoming Google video store either. Google Video is today's link because "the digital video revolution" until now was pretty much a theory. The digital video revolution, as goes this theory, says that for the low price of a camcorder and some video editing package, every person on the planet can replace a TV station. Or an entire film production. Neat idea on paper, but in reality, there's also distribution, and that's where the problems start: Google Video, among other services, tackles those problems head-on: For the first time, you can upload any video you own, and share it with the world for free. All bandwidth bills are paid by Google. And since they convert all videos to a format just about everyone can watch, there are no more plugin problems as well.
 * you normally have to host your files on a server somewhere that you pay for, and those video files and the bandwidth bills can get really high pretty fast - after all, video is lots of data.
 * video formats and plugin problems. Often times, people have to download and install some correct plugin before watching your video, which for lots of people can get old really fast.

But the biggest advantage is the interesting subculture Google Video is slowly fostering: The selection of videos becomes larger by the day. Are you a couch potato? Then already today, you can watch Google Video all day long, and there's always "something on".

So, for bringing the digital video revolution to life, this is the link for January 2006, this is Google Video.