Youtube & Flickr [[CPL 2.0]]

Comment on the quality, entertainment value, or usefulness of the content on these sites.

YOUTUBE

I believe that all these three things are very good on YouTube. I have used this website a lot, and so has my family. My son watches old wrestling matches, while my daughter watches her favourite TV shows and how-to videos.

On different videos there are different functions you can attempt. On every video you can view it in full screen or just normal size. You can also view videos in just double the size of a normal sized view. You can also choose whether to view most videos in High-Definition, or just normal quality. There is also a button that says (the highest I have seen before) 360p - 480p - 720p - 1080p, which is also in HD. This really just increases the video quality and clearness. On some videos, the creator can put on links to websites, and dialogue bubbles of whatever they want to say. To turn these off there is a small box in the right hand bottom corner that says: "Turn off Annotations" and "Turn off Captions". You can also turn off any advertisements (like for Pizza 73) with a small oval button above. There is also a new button that has the next video on a link. Right after the video is finished, you can click that button to see the next video that has similar themes. For example, if you are watching a video of a song with a specific band or singer, the next video could be another song by the singer(s) or the same song in a different version.

The entertainment value is very good, as well. You can go onto YouTube to watch music videos, or television shows. You can watch sports games, or replays, really anything somebody can get their hands on.

The usefulness of this content is also very good. My daughter wanted to see how to properly straighten her hair without burning her skin and many people put demo's of how to safely straighten their hair on YouTube. It can show you things you missed on TV, as well. YouTube is a very useful website for everybody to use for many different purposes. Now moving on to Flickr...
FLICKR

Flickr is a new website to me. I have heard about it, but have never used it. So this is the virtual tour: 1. Upload your memorable pictures from your computer, email, FlickrUpLoader, and more. 2. Edit your pictures. This part seems a lot like Photoshop.com to me. Get rid of red- eyes, change everything to black and white, and add your own text or little captions or stamps. 3. Organize your pictures into albums or collections. Collections are a grouping of Sets (or other Collections) so you can organize around grander themes such as special events or by year. 4. Share your pictures around the world. Just like on Facebook, you can create groups many people can relate around. Groups are a way for people to come together around a common interest such as dogs, or vacations at a particular place. You can join a group, or make one! , that will be public, public (invite only), or completely private. You can make friends this way by bonding over a certain group, that cannot be done on Photoshop.com. Also, when you post pictures onto Facebook you can whether to let an album be private or public, so everybody, even people who are not your friends, can see it. You can also do this on Flickr. 5. Next is Maps. This means you can drag-and-drop your photos and videos onto a map (using the Organizr) to show where you took them, or browse a world map to see where other people have been and what they saw. Basically, this means you can insert your photos onto a map to show where the pictures you took (in Vancouver, for example) have been taken (on Vancouver on the map). 6. Using a new product, Snapfish, you can turn your photos into: prints, posters, cards, photo books, calendars, collages, and canvases.

So now I created my own account, using my email, and uploaded a picture of my brother's pet dog, Dollar. Now I am editing it, and it seems very easy. But you need to use a different mode, Picnik mode. Auto-fix changed the lighting to become a bit lighter. I sharpened the view of the picture, and I have also changed the color to be a bit more blue. I have also fixed Dollar's red eyes in the picture. Flickr has an option of a human's eyes, or a pets'! Perfect! After editing, I am now 'creating'. To add text, there is a variety of fonts! I'm estimating over 100! Unless you order Picnik (which costs money) or create another account, so I just skipped that. I also changed the border to have rounded edges.

The quality is very much better than I had expected, actually. It is much easier to use than Photoshop.com, and the content is much more and easier to use. It was very entertaining, and if I ever need to edit photos, I will use Flickr. To see my edited photo of Dollar, it will be in the following blog.