What is YouTube?
Janet Klug, WE Think
YouTube (youtube.com) is a video upload website that allows users to place their own videos and share them with, well, the entire world. The Pope has a YouTube channel. So does President Obama and Queen Elizabeth. And so does yours truly. It doesn’t cost anything to view videos; and it doesn’t cost anything to upload your own videos.
Millions of people have uploaded millions of videos. If you have an interest in something, you enter your search into the search box on YouTube and you will be offered suggestions. I love the author Neville Shute, who wrote, among other things, On the Beach and A Town Like Alice. I keyed in Neville Shute, thinking there would be nothing about him or his books on YouTube. Wrong! Fifteen selections were presented to me, including one chilling tribute to Shute’s On the Beach novel. But I digress.
With millions of people accessing YouTube on a daily basis to be educated and entertained, this is an Internet technology just waiting for stamp collectors (that means US/WE) to exploit.
I’m on a committee called “New Initiatives” of the National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists. This committee is chaired by APS President Wade Saadi and I chair a subcommittee called “Building New Collectors.” The “Building New Collectors” subcommittee has several initiatives in various stages of development, and one of them is the YouTube initiative.
In order to kick-start this initiative, Wade and I both prepared video presentations that we hope will show non-collectors how interesting and exciting stamp collecting can be. Wade had his son video him talking about his toy train collection and trains on stamps. You can see Wade’s video here: Trains on Stamps.
YouTube screen shot of the introduction of APS President Wade Saadi’s video “Trains on Stamps.”
My contribution to the effort was done without using a video camera. Although we do have a video camera, I wanted to be able to show others that you don’t need expensive equipment to do this. If you have a computer, you have what you need.
It helps to have a broadband connection, as viewing video on dial-up is exasperating.
My video is called “A Cat’s Stamp of Approval.” It shows lots of colorful cat stamps and the story is told ostensibly by my cat Bandit, who sounds a lot like me.
The whole idea is to put together a video “exhibit” that will attract non-collectors. Our two videos together have over 1000 viewers, so in the 2+ weeks they have been up, they have reached people we would never have been able to reach before.
And that is what WE should be doing!
Now I can hear your excuses: “I don’t have a video camera.” You don’t need one. “I don’t have the time.” Who does? If it is something we really want to do, we always find the time. “I don’t have the computer knowledge.” No problem. written instructions, will follow in another article.
“I don’t know anything I could put on the Internet.” Hey, you have an exhibit, don’t you?
YouTube may or may not be the future of our hobby, but it is here now and we are not using it. I implore you: Use it! Make a video. Promote our hobby. Recruit new collectors. Be creative. Consider the “President’s Challenge” to expand the hobby. Consider this may be the future of exhibiting, and WE can lead the way. 
