All of us are viewing, collecting and streaming video online much more than we used to. Video content has proliferated on the web, and creating online video is no longer the work of just an isolated group of skilled technocrats. Anyone can become a video broadcaster online, and there are countless tools that can help you collect and consume video content. In this post, you'll find 10 resources for making your experience with online video better, and more efficient. 

Open source media player Miro is out in a new version 2.5, downloadable for Windows, the Mac, and Linux. Miro has long been well-liked as a way to collect and view timely video content, as well as manage video libraries. There are many enhancements in the new version, detailed here, but two of the new features that have jumped out at me as I've used the new version are audio podcasts available through Miroguide (a really nice way to navigate to content from all around the web and sample offerings that you may like), and smarter handling of BitTorrent files, especially videos.

It's so obvious, and it's still so easy to forget. Open source software is, well... open. People can modify it, give it back, pitch in, and use it as they wish. They can poke at and observe how scripts work and interact in one application, and apply those principles -- if not the code itself -- in their own projects. Still, it's so easy to forget it isn't simply about the code. Code is a major component, of course, and it's a driving force, but when it all boils down, it's still a means to an end, a tool, a way to get a job done.

It doesn't mean that code just has to work and have a function. There are oodles of other factors playing in -- usability, accessibility, and outright aesthetics. There's extensibility, compatibility, interoperability. There's spreading the word, demonstrating, advocating, and educating. And it sounds, sometimes, really endlessly time consuming. It can be -- but so can a few minutes of playing Fallout 3 before writing that email for work. Just ask my husband.

It doesn't have to be. Crazy as it is, contributing can be light work, and still effective. Sometimes, especially when it comes to advocacy, there are better results when alternative applications are mentioned and outlined in a general sense. Talk about the software further when asked, tell the person asking what the penguin (or the neat red swirly design) on your shirt represents.