They Search YouTube So You Don't Have To

YouTube and other video sites make for excellent diversions from work, but the best stuff out there is outweighed by tons of puerile crap. To the rescue comes The Daily Tube, which employs a group of rotating editors who comb the web and run through viewer suggestions to choose the best videos of the day so you can optimize your slack-off time.

Recent videos that had me rolling: a pregnant Jenna Elfman hustling basketball; Stephen Colbert on pork rinds and marshmallow fluff; the always hilarious Sarah Silverman carving up jail-bound Paris Hilton at the MTV Video Awards on blondie's last night out. (Paris is pissed, Jack Nicholson is highly amused.) As far as I can tell, there are no videos of cats going potty on the toilet. The uncluttered, visually appealing site is divided into neat sections including Best of Today, Late Nite, Celebs, Music, and the redundant Humor. If you want, they'll email you clips from your favorite categories.

I like the fact that a prestige group of human editors are picking these videos. I'm not impressed with the latest "social network" craze in content selection. If I wanted my newsto be chosen by a bunch of immature male nerds & wankers glued to their computers instead of out trying to establish relationships with women and other human beings, I'd...well, I'd use Digg.com. YouTube is great, but its rating system overgamed by its social network. That's why so many five-star videos suck.

The Daily Tube seems to have a sensibility similar to my own. In other words, I find their selections to be right on the mark, most of the time. Of course, my editor at Portfolio, Michael Caruso is one of The Daily Tube's founders and editors. But I'd say good things about the site even if he weren't. I would. Really.
Check it out, and judge for yourself.

--Russ Mitchell