Free Downloads of College Lectures from YouTube

The folks at YouTube are taking their game to the next level.  In case you haven't noticed, the popular video-sharing site offers  more than funny videos of people lip-syncing the latest pop song.  I learned some cool Photoshop techniques from YouTube videos, posted by a kid who may not even have his driver's license.

YouTube recently announced the ability to download videos at no cost from their site.  Now I can hold onto those tutorials to view them later when I may not have Internet access.  What really excites me is the ability to download university lectures from their partner institutions.  While content providers have the option of charging for their vidoes, universities will license their content under Creative Commons licensing, making them free for all non-commercial use.  Included among the list of early adopters is nearby Duke University who began using iTunes U as well to make content available for downloading to their iPods.

When I heard this news, I thought of the iTunes U initiative and wondered why institutions using this platform would go the extra mile to adopt another platform for sharing anthropology lectures or French grammar lessons.  I continued reading an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education's, The Wired Campus,(New from YouTube: Free Downloads of College Lectures) which pointed out that the iTunes consumer actively seeks content by going to the site and searching.  YouTube consumers, generally speaking, discover content on the site from embedded links on blogs, homepages, and social networking sites.

For additional information on the YouTube partners program, see YouTube Downloads - Partner Interest