I’m currently wrapping up the presentation about the state of higher education (audio and video) podcasting in the US I’ve been invited to give at the Podcasting for Education Conference to be held next week at The University of Warwick in the UK (and no, I’m not the lucky gal you think I am as I don’t get to fly to the conference: I will actually present from my desk thanks to the magic of VOip, Web cams and WebEx).
This explains why my posting has been a bit slower than usual, but this also gives me an opportunity (an excuse?) to listen to and watch a bit more higher ed audio and video productions than usual.
I’ve just stumbled upon a great video on the UC Berkeley YouTube Channel that manages to demonstrate the high level research done at the institution in an usual and funny way.
So, how did UC Berkeley achieve this in just one minute and 51 seconds?
By having UC Berkeley professor and Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist George Smoot to reenact the Big Bang (Smoot received the Nobel Prize for his research confirming the “Big Bang”) on camera with the help of… the Cal big Band:
Posted on January 31, 2008, the video has been viewed 22,301 times at the time of this writing.
What’s really amazing about this result is that the video was actually shot and publicized more than a year ago when Smoot received his Nobel Prize.
So, it appears that the recycling of old footage does work on YouTube when you have a compelling video.
I’ve also noticed something very smart done by UC Berkeley to maximize the possible return of this kind of late-night-show-material videos. They just included the name of a media contact at the end of the video description.
Mainstream media outlets (Network/Cable TV channels but also newspapers and magazines) are known to watch for the latest popular YouTube videos.
By making your contact information easily accessible, you will increase your chance to get a call if they likee what they watch.
Great post, Karine. The info following the video is very helpful.