Chapter 6. Joining the YouTube Community

In This Chapter

  • Networking with others on YouTube

  • Sharing your experiences

  • Getting rid of the bad stuff

Videos. YouTube is most well known for and most commonly identified with videos — which makes good and proper sense given that YouTube is, after all, the Internet's first video-sharing Web site. YouTube is about videos, but YouTube isn't only about videos.

You may remember us saying many times in this book that YouTube is a community, and you may have thought, "Yeah. A community. A bunch of people sharing and watching videos. Cool. Got it. Next." But when you really spend some time clicking around the Tube and trying out its features, it dawns on you just how extensive — and how interactive — the YouTube community is. The YouTube community isn't just a concept — it's a real thing.

People talk to people on YouTube; people meet people on YouTube. They make friends and bond over shared interests and goals. The three major features that make YouTube an interactive community are commenting, channels, and groups. We take a good look at these features in this chapter — all from the perspective of Tubers meeting other Tubers. We also show you how to keep away from the Tubers you don't want to know — the ones who annoy you. Yes, they're out there, too!

YouTube has become synonymous with videos, but YouTube is just as much about social networking and making friends. YouTube is something like the first video-version of MySpace or Facebook, two hugely popular ...

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