AstroShorts.com: A ‘YouTube’ for Astronomy Enthusiasts
Wow, first I hear about AstronomyBuzz, an astronomy community site designed to allow content creators to publish astronomy stuff. Now I learn there’s another site dedicated to astronomy, but seems exclusively designed for sharing videos.
AstroShorts.com is a new site (no, it’s not something I would wear to the beach) that lets you upload and share astronomy-related videos just like YouTube does. The site is very professional looking and I already like their player better than the one on YT. The interfaces are crisp and clean, and unlike YT, they are responsive.
There is one big problem with embedding this player though, it defaults to playing the video upon page load! I hate that! I can’t stand going to sites where audio or video begin playing right away. If I embed more than one video on my blog, then they all start playing. Not good.
To get it to stop, I had to go into the code and set the autoplay value to false. That’s something they should change right away, most people who embed videos aren’t going to want them to play upon loading and they won’t know to go into the code to change it.
[UPDATE: Steve Bevan just emailed me to say they’ve changed the autoplay parameter to default to false. Now they have the best embedded player on the ‘net. Thanks Steve!]
Here’s an example of the embedded player:
Of course, this is a NASA/JPL video. I have a feeling that everything NASA has produced or ever will produce will end up on sites like this. The thing is, NASA has plenty of ways to distribute it’s content, it even has it’s own TV channel.
I think the real value of sites like AstroShorts will be in providing an outlet for the content that regular people make, and I just don’t know how many of us there are. I mean, I love astronomy as much as anyone can love it, I know this stuff and I can teach it reasonably well, but I just can’t produce more than, say, two videos a month. And then only if I really hump on it. I can do more in the way of video blogs, since they are just me blathering on in front a camera, but not much more. Maybe one a week.
While AstronomyBuzz lets you post all kinds of content including video, audio and text, AstroShorts seems to be video-only. I guess this is a sign of the times isn’t it? These video sharing sites are getting more and more specialized.
I feel like I missed a meeting somewhere though. Is there THAT much astronomy content being independently created to justify all of these sites or will they just end up being aggregators for NASA content?
It’ll be real interesting to me to see how this all shakes out. As far as I know, the big content creators like NASA, ESA, and various universities all have mechanisms for distributing their content online. The only thing they don’t have is the capability to embed some code on websites like YouTube, AstroShorts and AstronomyBuzz have, but it may be only a matter of time before they start doing it.
I really think the creation of all these astronomy communities and video sites is very exciting, I just hope there’s enough content and the audience to keep all these sites afloat.
Sigh. I guess I better get humping on my next video. At least there’s no shortage of places for me to put it.
Technorati Tags: astronomy video, astroshorts, YouTube
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POSTED IN: astronomy video, news from readers
13 opinions for AstroShorts.com: A ‘YouTube’ for Astronomy Enthusiasts
Shannon
May 3, 2007 at 6:41 am
Wow, I really like that video. Very interesting. I guess I’m going to have to check out everything avaliable through these various sites. You better get “humping” on those videos. Nice word choice. I’m excited to see what you come up with for a new video, the last ones were so awe inspiring, and lovely, and a bit humbling too.
Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer
May 3, 2007 at 10:43 am
I’m not sure where this is heading. There are lots of sites, and eventually many will fail, and some will rise to the top. Unfortunately, in this market, it’s not always the best that survives: look at YouTube and MySpace, both of which are truly awful in design, coding, and layout!
AstronomyShorts looks pretty good, and AstroBuzz is an experiment too. We may see both flourishing, or one gobbling up the other, or ten more come online and confuse the issue! :-)
Matt
May 3, 2007 at 11:03 am
I enjoyed astroshorts.com, a nice blend of original content and filler material from other sources - i see they just started - it will be nice to have only one or two sites to view this stuff instead of going all over the web. Also think the community should work together and cooperate with each other on these websites.
Frederica
May 3, 2007 at 11:44 am
I hope they’re here to stay. I enjoyed watching crisp images, full screen.
julie
May 3, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’d like to see the humping in your next por….errr video ;)
Reddwarfgazer
May 3, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Same here, hope they manage to stay afloat for a while. Cooperation sounds good, doesn’t make sense to see one of these websites and start publishing a bunch of them afterwards, that would just be bad astronomy.
Tony
May 3, 2007 at 12:52 pm
@Shannon: I’m currently finishing up Life in the Universe #2 which focuses on the difficulties of searching for intelligent life in our galaxy. For example, using eight space probes, each with the capability of separating into eight more, will take half the age of the universe to cover only 4% of our galaxy. It’s about 7 minutes long. I’m humping away (Heh, heh, try to get THAT image out of your mind… I may have scarred you for life.)
@Phil: It’s certainly true that the best don’t always end up on top. YT is a prime example, they have the clunkiest comment interface I’ve ever seen. It’s so bad I stopped using it entirely.
I wish you nothing but success with your experiment. I have plans to be a contributor to astronomybuzz, I really believe in what you guys are doing.
@Matt & Reddwarfgazer: Cooperation is always a good idea and I can’t imagine any real cutthroat competition going on here.
The hardcore online astronomy community is only so big though, I think to have a real impact, an appeal will have to be made to a much wider, more general audience. I just worry that there’s just not that much stuff out there.
Perhaps these sites will appeal to content creators in other genres and inspire them to make more astronomy-related content.
That would be so cool…
@Julie: Don’t make me use the spank ray ;-)
@Frederica: I think they’ll be around for a long time, as Phil said, it’s an experiment, but one I think will ultimately be successful
Tony
May 3, 2007 at 1:03 pm
You know, I’ve been thinking (I know, I know, but I haven’t hurt myself yet). I shouldn’t be focusing on traffic or whether there’s enough content out there to ‘justify’ (whatever that means), these astronomy community sites.
Of all the sciences, astronomy is uniquely capable of getting under everyone’s skin, to inspire ALL of us. The potential audience for this content is, well, humanity.
How much more of a market do you need?
So long as the people creating the content - no matter how small a group they are - are doing for the love of it and not trying to make a buck, then it’s already a success.
Traffic, page views, amount of original content etc, only really matter when you’re trying to turn a profit.
AstronomyBuzz doesn’t look like it’s trying to make any money, I don’t see ads anywhere. And AstroShorts just has a donate button, probably to try and recoup expenses.
Perhaps my premise was a false one. These sites are just doing what they love.
That makes them successful just by itself…
Steve Bevan -AstroShorts
May 3, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I’m very grateful for the positive comments so far. Yes, AstroShorts is in the early going right now and we hope to grow and serve the astronomy community. I think that Phil is right -these things take on a life of their own. Some survive and some fail. Personaly, I hope that instead of working at odds with each other, we work together to bring the message to the general public.
Keep looking up!
Steve Bevan
May 3, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Tony, I want to thank you for pointing out the Autoplay issue. We’ve changed it based on your recommendation.
Best wishes,
Steve
julie
May 4, 2007 at 11:09 am
http://www.sultrygifts.co.uk/detail.asp?id=993
is this what a spank ray looks like? ;)
Nick
May 14, 2007 at 3:28 am
Tony, thanks for posting a link to great resources like AstroShorts and AstronomyBuzz - I definitely agree that astronomy is something that can inspire many, many people on this little world of ours, and having a place to share this sort of content is great.
Browsing around I was wondering whether there was somewhere to submit requests - last week JPL did a webcast of their Von Karman lecture on Searching for Exoplanets and I really wanted to see it. Unfortunately it started at 4am local time and I missed my alarm. If anyone knows where I might find a copy that would be excellent.
I think that in general making requests would be a good way to build up these communities bringing viewers and contributors closer together.
Nick
Astronomy Buff - AstroShorts.com takes requests and gives away IPOD’s
May 21, 2007 at 1:09 am
[…] One reader posted a comment wondering about the possibility of requests for astronomy videos, particularly those that have been webcast but not necessarily served anywhere for viewing on demand. […]
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