Online Entertainment

In this blog, I will be talking about different kinds of online entertainment.

Youtube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos.

Youtube displays a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.

YouTube Statistics

48 hours of video are uploaded every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day

Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day

Users upload the equivalent of 240,000 full-length films every week

YouTube is localised in 25 countries across 43 languages

YouTube's demographic is broad: 18-54 years old

YouTube reached over 700 billion playbacks in 2010

Advantages of You Tube

• There are lots of different channels that upload different things so you can find something that you are interested in.
• You can subscribe to a particular channel so you can be notified when they have made a new video for you to watch.
• There are millions of videos to choose from that can entertain you.
• Some TV companies upload previous episodes of a television series so you can watch it if you missed it the first time round.
• You can watch it on the go on your mobile.

Disadvantages of You Tube

• People can post what ever they want on You Tube so some videos could be found to be offensive.
•  Some videos can take a long time to load before you can view them or they could randomly pause in the middle of the video to load.
•  There are lots of adverts at the beginning on videos that can take up to 30 seconds to stop before you can watch the video.

 In my opinion, YouTube is extremely entertaining as you can find a video about almost anything you can think of.  Any disadvantages are a small price to pay for the large amount of entertaining content all on one website.

Second Life Online Game

In 1999, Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab. He made Second Life, developing computer hardware allowing people to immerse in a virtual world.

Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on the 23 June, 2003.  Client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users to interact with each other through their avatars. Residents can explore the world, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another.  In November 2010, 21.3 million accounts were registered and as of 2011 the game has about one million active users that play regularly.

Advantages of Second Life 

• People find it fun to be able to play a game where they can forget about what is going on around them and immerse themselves in their second life online. 
• It is a free game and it is easy to sign up to play. 
• You can connect with and talk to other people. 
• You can make money from the game from the in-game currency called lindens.

  Disadvantages of Second Life

• If someone plays it too much they can get addicted which can lead to health problems. 
• They would be staring at a screen for ages which can lead to eye problems. 
• You need a good computer in order to run the game. 
• You need a good internet connection in order to connect to the game servers. 

 In my opinion, a game like second life could be very entertaining.  You can connect to other people around the world and play it with your friends.  However,  the game needs a good internet connection and computer to be able to run and some people may be playing this role playing game too seriously, which could be a problem if they get addicted to it.

  

Music and Movies

On the internet, there are a number of companies that have programs that enable you to buy music and movies from the internet to your computer or mobile device, for your entertainment.  One of the most well known and most used is Itunes.

iTunes was introduced by Apple Inc. on January 9, 2001.

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing and downloading digital music and video files computers. It can also organise the contents on iPods, iPhones and iPads.  iTunes can connect to the iTunes Store to purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, iPod games, audiobooks and podcasts.

As of October 4, 2011, the store served its 16 billionth song.

Advantages of music and movies online 

• Convenient as you can download and listen to it in just a few clicks. 
• It is easy to find the song or movie you want by just searching, buying, downloading and playing it. 
• There are thousands of entertaining movies and songs. 
• Once you buy and download it you can play it anywhere.

  Disadvantages of music and movies 

• They can take up lots of hard drive space on your computer. 
• Long movies can take a long time to download before you can watch them. 
• Some people download music and movies for free from illegal websites.

  

In my opinion, music and movies from the internet are very entertaining and convenient.  They are as entertaining as music and movies that you buy on a disk, but they are much easier to obtain from a website such as Itunes and much easier to watch or listen to on the computer, which I think makes it better.