A Video Feast

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>I've never been a YouTube addict. People with new devices head straight for the YouTube app and see how it's working, but that's' not me. Based on pure necessity I will search for something specific via Google, and once I've seen it I'm done with it and out of there.<br><br>But an app for the iPad called Showyou changed all that.<br><br>Showyou (free) is all about serendipitous discovery of content — in this case via videos on YouTube, Vimeo, and TED and other places around the net. But it isn't just the lot of the millions of videos out there, including all the trash you'd rather avoid. On YouTube alone, over 48 hours of video is uploaded every minute and you certainly wouldn't want to dive in there head first. What Showyou does is to let you choose from videos shared by your friends and contacts on Facebook and Twitter. If your networks are crafted to your liking, you will get to see a beautifully relevant bunch of videos. In fact it was because I find myself wanting to watch so many from my collections each time I look that I realised my networks do comprise like-minded&nbsp; people, and experts from whom I want to learn something.<br><br><img src="/businessworld/system/files/app-photo.jpg" style="margin: 5px; float: right;" width="200" height="266">Relevance isn't the only value you get from this app. The primary thrill is the format in which you get the video content. It's a feast.&nbsp; Your screen is filled with video squares. You can use a light touch to move across the panorama of videos and touch a video to watch. From within the app you can comment, thank, share and select for a view- later playlist.<br><br>You can invite people to share videos within the ShowYou network if people you follow are members — or invite people. You can also search for people or topics or choose from a set of channels.<br><br>The ShowYou app isn't just remarkable because of the videos. It's fascinating because it demonstrates how the tablet is an ideal consumption device and how there are fresh innovative ways of consuming content. These new formats are making it difficult to resist watching, reading and listening.<br><br><em>Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professional. Contact her at mala at pobox dot com and @malabhargava on Twitter</em></p>