YouTube launched a handy new page last night that aggregates all the videos from more than 100 institutions of higher education around the US. YouTube.com/edu now serves up campus tours, free lectures, research and other college news all in one place. Search queries can be limited to the Edu part of the site as well.
This is a great idea and we expect that young people who discover it will appreciate it. At first glance it looks better to us than iTunes University. This could genuinely help young people make more informed decisions about what schools to apply to. There’s also a lot of great content on the site for anyone to learn from.
In our admittedly limited experience, the academic content on iTunes is very limited, less easy to consume and generally less interesting.
Last year we asked “Is YouTube the Next Google?,” noting that video search is one of the most compelling types of search online. There is video content online, and on YouTube in particular, about just about anything. College content? That’s a no brainer.
If you like academic videos, make sure to check out Academic Earth as well.
