The power of web video in science

Chris Anderson from TED discusses the power of video in his prezi presentation.

"Crowd accelerated innovation"

Three ingredients for "crowd accelerated innovation" include:

1. Crowd- group of people who share a common interest. People that make up the crowds include: innovators, commentors, trend-spotters, cheerleaders, skeptics, mavericks, and superspreaders. They are creating the ecosystem from which innovation emerges.
2. Light- clear open visibility of what the best people in that crowd are capable of, because that is how you will learn, and how you will be empowered.
3. Desire- Innovation is hard work. It is based on hundreds of hours of research and practice. Absent desire will not allow innovation.

The power of web video in science
Chris Anderson highlights JOVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments)!  (The part about JOVE starts at 10:42 mins of the video)

"Jove is a website that was founded to encourage scientists to publish their peer-reviewed research on video. There's a problem with a traditional scientific paper. It can take months for a scientist in another lab to figure out how to replicate the experiments that are described in print. Here's one such frustrated scientist, Moshe Pritsker, the founder of Jove. He told me that the world is wasting billions of dollars on this. But look at this video. I mean, look: if you can show instead of just describing, that problem goes away. So it's not far-fetched to say that, at some point, online video is going to dramatically accelerate scientific advance."

For more basic lab video techniques there is Benchfly.com. I learned how to do colony PCR from Benchfly.com. I really appreciated the ability to replay the protocol before doing it. As a new graduate student, I realize there is only so much time you can reasonably ask for from senior members of the lab. My favorite part of Benchfly.com is that anyone can create and add a video. With their rating system and comments sections in place Benchfly allows its users and the scientific community to have a discussion. (The "crowd" moderates the content)

Setting a standard
Setting a high standard by highlighting the leaders in the field is arguably the most important ingredient in accelerating innovation. "Clear open visibility of what the best people in that crowd are capable of," is important "because that is how you will learn, and how you will be empowered."

What I would like to see
The ability to embed videos from JOVE or Benchfly allowing them to be shared just like YouTube clips. Being able to embed video can only accelarate the sharing process and size of the "crowd."