Gen Y Embraces the Vlogosphere

With the addition of the video iPod to the seemingly endless line of iEverything products, a new form of blogging is quickly gaining popularity with the masses. Video blogs, a.k.a. vlogs, can attribute their mostly quiet existence to their issues of accessibility until now. Just like TV shows and music videos, vlogs can be downloaded from iTunes.

A national cable channel exists based on the sole purpose of showing vlogs and much like consumer generated media within the blogosphere, they have VC2 or viewer-created content. According to the Current TV Web site VC2 makes up 1/3 of the content shared on the site. All visitors to the site can submit a vlog to be judged and given the “green light” of approval for posting.

Current TV is a forward thinking channel financed heavily by Al Gore. The channel is comprised of news sections, submitted blogs, Google searches, and other short segments. Current TV takes this one step further creating an online community centered on the submission of vlogs. A section online actually takes you step-by-step through the creation of a vlog. Every aspect is covered from gear, to lighting, to compression, demonstrated in, of course, vlogs. Although the vlogs on Current TV are very diverse ranging from sports to news to short stories, they have one thing in common: they are all well done, legitimate stories. Not your style? Try YouTube.

YouTube is another online community centered around video, that is not restricted to vlogs. Anything can be found on YouTube… anything. The site hosts literally thousands of videos rated by users and sorted based on your preferences. The popular tag search format found in blogs is present on YouTube as well. The abundance of videos on this site actually allows them to have twenty-one channels.