Multiple YouTube Tabs
Multiple YouTube tabs in your browser is the new Media Player. In the past the big-deal phenomenon was having WinAmp or windows Media Player all set up for all your songs and media information. But now more and more people are using YouTube for all of their music and media needs. You can find a huge variety of songs on YouTube and then just stream them in a tab in your FireFox or Internet Explorer browser. The content is so streamlined and easily accessible that I have very little need to actually Download anything anymore. I can just stream music and information on YouTube. As for TV, I can use Hulu.com or TheWB.com for that. I barely find myself ever actually sitting in front of the television anymore. And since most record stores are basically extinct I stream most of my music. In the cases that I do want to purchase a hardcopy CD then I do so from Amazon.com or directly from an Artist’s official music page.
The interesting thing is this new paradigm in streaming multiple tabs of YouTube information at a time has only been made possible by advancements in several forms of technology. First of all, you need to have a computer that has enough processing power and RAM in order to handle the raw computing challenge of the open tabs. And let’s not forget that even though tabs have been around in browsers for several years, not everyone knew about them or made use of them. Do you remember running multiple windows of Internet Explorer at the same time in order to multitask? It was annoying and it was good that the minimize/maximize animation was always cool, or else we would have gotten bored fast. Anther major factor was the advent and wide spread proliferation of DSL, cable and T1 connection speeds to the internet. Without those fast connections, we wouldn’t be able to stream so many tabs of information at the same time. It is a real blessing.
Between multiple tabs, my YouTube favorites, and the auto-fill feature on most search boxes, there is no real reason to not have lightening fast access to whatever you want on the web. I have also noticed that in response to how so many people are posting music on YouTube, many official and intelligent record labels have been promoting their own YouTube channels and have been sharing Official Music videos and song releases. This is definitely a smart idea on the part of the savvy record labels. The main reason is that if people REALLY want to listen to your music, they are going to figure a way to get it. So instead of forcing people to have to meander around the system in order to satiate their audio desires, the Record Label can make their music widely available on YouTube. This way you can not only make it so people can listen to your music who already want to hear it. But it also provides a quick and trusted way for your artists to rapidly achieve Viral MEME status by letting people post links on their Facebook, blogs and other social media applications and sources. A known fact is that people love linking to YouTube on their Facebook. And if you have an artist that you love, there is sometimes a chance that literally millions of other people may be interested in sharing that link as well.
As computer users of this decade become more and more comfortable will have the entire internet at their fingertips in nanoseconds, it makes sense that the internet browser takes a more direct role in that experience. What I’ve noticed is that browsers that attempt to make small simple changes over time are more successful than browsers that try to rewrite the book and/or allow for spam and unwanted toolbars to infiltrate their browsing. I use Mozilla Firefox and that seems to provide the most streamlined and pleasurable online experience. I don’t want a stupid BingBar or amazon bar or any of that spam. I just want the browser and my toolbar favorites. Being able to customize the toolbar favorites by simply right clicking them and renaming them not only makes browsing easier on the eyes. But it also saves me a fraction of a second per browsing session. And since I use the computer for over 2 hours a day that means I am literally saving days per year just because I made my internet browsing experience more efficient. Having multiple tabs of YouTube not only compounds that efficiency, but it also allows me to quickly learn about new pieces of music or media that I might have not necessarily had the time to search for.
-Tyler