Friday, October 30, 2009

Sams Teach Yourself Youtube in 10 Minutes Book Review

For my book report, I decided to read the book: “Sams Teach Yourself Youtube in 10 Minutes,” written by Michael Miller. As I began to read this book, I found that it was extremely easy to read. Before reading, I looked over the table of contents and as I began each chapter, I found that this was a very well thought out book. One of the best things I found with this book is that any reader won’t need any experience in the beginning. They can read this book without knowing what they're supposed to do or any vocabulary related to this topic. Michael Miller wrote this book for the most easy way to break something down so any reader can understand the point and what they are supposed to do.

The beginning chapters of the book give the reader a basic introduction to what Youtube is and what the purpose is for the site. Miller gives examples of what can be found on Youtube and what the basic components are of Youtube in this book. First off, Miller tells the reader how to create an account with Youtube and how it can be actually linked through their Google account, if they have one. This allows people to combine these two sites and won’t have to worry about creating a whole new account to add to the list of their already long list of accounts they have. If a Google account isn't already established, that's okay. The first few chapters of the book lay the basic foundation of Youtube. What it is and what it holds. Miller explains how to look for certain videos, how to browse through different videos, and how to add the reader's favorite videos to their profile so they don’t have to go looking for them. Youtube allows everyone to share videos that are found on the site with friends that might not have an account with Youtube or don’t like to go on Youtube very much. This give a lot more freedom for the videos so they can travel around all the different sites the internet has to offer, giving the video and the creator much wanted publicity. People even use Youtube as a site for them to post their blogs which are called vblogs.

This book gives the reader all the necessary information they want and need to shoot, upload, watch, and keep track of their videos. They can contact other Youtube users and find others that share the same interests. They can show the readers different videos that they may have never seen. As a reader reads the book and gains more information, the information transitions to the more advanced stuff such as adding captioning or annotations to the uploaded video. As a reader of this book, I would have never known how to do it before. Now, I can create a video with all these different options open to me and make a video that is more than just shooting something and uploading. Youtube allows the user to be very creative with their videos. I especially enjoyed the chapter where you can switch the soundtrack on the video with an outside soundtrack completely different than the original. That was always an interest of mine as I watched Youtube videos. I didn’t know how they did that and was always curious.

As I said before, this book is wonderful for the beginners out there. It breaks everything down and allows a better understanding of the material. If the reader pretty much understands how Youtube already works, this entire book may not be for you. Certain chapters may pertain to you, or anyone for that matter, but the whole idea of the book is for those that are just starting out on Youtube. If you pretty much are set on Youtube, you may find this book a little boring because you already know what he’s telling you. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to increase their skills on Youtube. It definitely allowed me to understand more and be a little more interested in making a movie of my own. Not technically a vblog but something.

1 comment:

  1. I’m guessing you didn’t find any obvious mistakes? At only 200 pages this new book (just published at the end of the summer) is a very quick read (or scan if you need just an answer to a particular question) and is inexpensive (or free in libraries and available on Safari ebooks). In fact, this book is so new there are very few reviews available on it (you should consider pasting your review on the Amazon site).

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