Interesting Uses of YouTube

Here are some interesting things I’ve learned people are using YouTube for.

* Police use YouTube to solve crimes - Reuters reports that YouTube has helped Ontario police find a man they believe to be responsible for a murder at a local night club. (source) (source) (source) (source) (source) (source) (source) (source)

* Letting the public act as investigators - "It's our hope that releasing the audio to the public we can come closer to finding Mr. Wali's killer," said D/Sgt Pauline Gray. "I'd be interested in what the public thinks and whether they recognize the suspect's voice.". She said YouTube has been used to encourage witnesses or sources to come forward in past homicide investigations, but never with an audio recording. Click here to visit the YouTube page with the posted audio. "We're using all these great new tools at our hands," Gray said, of posting the audio to YouTube, and letting the public act as investigators. (source)

* Find missing children - By the end of the second week of August, when the McCanns marked the 100th day since Madeleine's disappearance by launching a YouTube initiative to help to find missing children, the Portuguese media had suggested that the McCanns could have killed their daughter, and the British press was not shy about repeating and even revelling in the "monstrous slurs". (source)

* Virtual bands - Three musicians that do not know each other recorded a song together. (source)

* Starting a global yawning epidemic - Mythbusters, which is a pretty cool show in it's own right, is using youtube to try and start a global yawning epidemic. (source) (source)

* Video resumes - Schnurman expects to use YouTube for mass distribution of the resumes and hopes to convince law schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to incorporate this project into their career development offerings. (source)

* Broadcast sentencing hearings - Judge James Kimbler might just be my hero. This crafty judge is using YouTube to broadcast sentencing hearings to help shame criminals for their actions. The Ohio-based judge has been quoted as saying he thinks it's a good use of technology. Kimbler's been known to use shame tactics in his courtroom before - the use of YouTube is new. (source)

* Crisis response - Based on how they are using YouTube and podcasts for crisis response , it is clear that the Romney campaign has an understanding of how to use the web in this day and age. (source)

* Using YouTube to “blow the whistle” - An engineer at Lockheed Martin used YouTube to blow the whistle on problems with a large Coast Guard project. (source)

* Mexican drug cartel has been using Youtube - More recently the Mexican drug cartel has been using Youtube, in a sort of cyber drug war, as individuals from rival gangs are killed or tortured the footage is then uploaded to Youtube. (source)

* Chain letters in YouTube comments - Don't know how common this practice is, but I just saw my first "chain letter" in a YouTube comment: (source)

* Doctors give advice to patients in rural locations - Doctors in rural Wales are using YouTube to give health advice to patients. (source) (source)

* Politician congratulates another - Blair uses YouTube to congratulate Sarkozy. (source)

* As a free method of advertising - So I come across a story on CNN about how a toy company used YouTube to create a Viral/Word of Mouth Marketing Buzz for a new remote control helicopter. (source) (source)

* Companies hosting competitions for users to create ads - H.J. Heinz Co. and AT&T Inc. have also used YouTube to host online contests. (source)

* CNN uses YouTube during presidential debate - CNN's use of YouTube for tonight's Democratic presidential debate is being hailed as groundbreaking experiment in democracy. (source)

* Discover new musicians - Video-sharing website YouTube has launched a major music promotion to discover unsigned US bands and musicians. (source)

* Video diaries - lonelygirl15 was a screenname attached to a teenage girl named "Bree" who used myspace and youtube to display diary entries predominantly in video form. (source)

* Cyber bullying - I think Youtube is a terrible website that enables teenagers to humiliate other children. (source)

* Host video walking tours of homes for sale - Real estate agent Krista Miller used YouTube to host a video walking tour of a home for sale. (source)

* Find passwords for FTP sites - The latest Google Hack is using YouTube to find users and passwords for ftp sites. (source)

* Literacy training - Use YouTube for story hours, gaming nights and literacy training. (source) (source)

* Streaming course content - While Berkeley's offerings on iTunes U are mostly available only for listening, and while its videos on its existing, proprietary webcast.berkeley portal are confined to the Real format, YouTube opens streaming course content to virtually anyone with typical bandwidth and a Web browser. (source)

* Teaching ESL - ESL teachers are using YouTube to illustrate the use of everyday English and to help their students improve their listening skills. (source)