Why Vialogues in Not Another YouTube

YouTube has been leading the social media video market for years, even a whole decade, now. Its popularity and importance on the Internet would grown to gain the attention of Internet giant, Google, who eventually purchased the company in 2006. Other than WorldStarhiphop.com, YouTube has almost parelled competition in the open access video market.

When first introduced to Vialogues, I thought oh great another want-to-be YouTube site. But after further exploration I realized that Vialogue was more than just a video-enriched social media site. Vialogue is designed to create a dialogue around videos. This focus would make it a rather one-dimensional site, however, due to the audience it attracts it has evolved into a potentially powerful educational tool. Most videos found on Vialogue are not just for entertainment, as you would find on YouTube, instead it serves as a hub for high-quality videos with a breadth of learning material. For instance you can find under the list of popular videos, videos from TedTalks, informative film critics, and book reviews.

Due to its educationally oriented nature, Vialogues is a great resource for teachers, and in fact has a dedicated login in just for teachers and students for educational purposes. Teachers can privatize videos and dialogues just for students, creating a online hub for discussion to occur anytime. It’s also a safe option to direct students that need to watch a video to learn more about a topic, since any entertainment-oriented videos will be omitted. This orientation alone demonstrates that Vialogues is not, just another YouTube; it’s academia’s YouTube, and we needed it.