November 15, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 20)
URL:
http://www.ted.com
Rating:
Strong Points: Very large video library, spans many topics
Weak Points: “View all topics” link broken at the moment
Summary:
Although it is not exclusively a science site, any catalog of the “Best of the Web” would be incomplete without TED.com, a site designed to disseminate information across a variety of disciplines freely to the world. This information takes the form of short talks (typically 10–20 minutes), all of which can be viewed for free from the website, and most of which can also be downloaded. Site visitors can search the massive video library by keyword, or they can browse by talk title or speaker. In theory, site visitors can also browse all talks by topic, but at the time of my writing this, the “view all topics” link was erroneously routing me to the biology talks page. (What can I say—the site knows what I like…) The site also offers a number of playlists composed of multiple talks grouped by a common theme.
