You can’t avoid it. The hardware and software technology that supports the Web makes it relatively easy and quite natural to make information in all sorts of formats – text, images, audio, video – available. With a high speed connection to the Internet you can experience all these formats quite easily. Virtually all the news and broadcast sites on the Web make their content available in a variety of ways including text, audio, images, and video. Individuals have the option to offer these formats in their blogs.
In addition to sites that present information in a variety of formats, some sites offer collections based on a specific type of media. Among these, some include popular culture items such as episodes from TV shows or popular music. Others make it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to add their content in digital format. Here are some examples:
- Video – YouTube
- TV shows – Hulu
- Audio and Video – iTunes store – all sorts of items in audio and video format, some for sale and some available at no charge
- Photos – Flickr
- Audio – last.fm, http://www.last.fm/. Links to music, radio, concerts, and video.
Some questions to consider:
- Are you breaking any laws by copying or downloading media from these sites?
- If you upload a video or a photo to one of these sites, do you give up any rights? Â Can others legally copy them, reuse them, or sell them?
Some search tools specialize in dealing with media other than text. Here are a few:
- Audio – FindSounds , http://www.findsounds.com/ISAPI/search.dll
- Images – Imagery, http://elzr.com/imagery. This is an interface to Google Image Search
- Images – Exalead Image Search, http://www.exalead.com/image/. Searches a variety of resources on the Web.
- Video – blinx, http://www.blinkx.com/. Searches several of the popular video sites.
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