science.TV is one amongst the newest actors of the online video sharing marketplace, based in Bristol, UK.
As Matt Thurling, founder says:
“My vision for science.tv is simply to provide the best possible set of tools to enable interaction via video between the science community. My definition of the science community is probably broader than the other sites in that it includes hobbyists and school students as well as research scientists. The idea is that, given the right tools, everybody will find their level and their role in science.tv, be it creator, distributor, educator or consumer of niche content.”
With a domain name like this, I expected a lot more science content, but the emphasis at this early point is on entertaining Make-like tech and DIY videos (think of Instructables), many of them coming from YouTube. While I am in favor of merging science with tech and had a little role in popularizing tech sites like Make and O’Reilly Radar in the science blogosphere I do not think that science.TV is a good name choice for such type of combined content. However, in the long run, not the name that matters but the content. If science.TV can aggregate, share or produce quality content at the science-tech interface than it will be a colorful and appreciated member of the family of science video sites ranging from the research focused JoVE and SciVee to the less academic DNATube or Lab Action.
To achieve this aim science.TV is looking for contributors, or with the words of Matt Thurling:
“At present, I am looking for one tech-savvy representative form each of the major fields of science so please contact me asap if you’d like to be involved.”
P.S. Unfortunately I haven’t found anything on the about page.
Deep, healthy lifespan extension 
Attila,
Great post, and fair comment. There are perhaps a few things I should explain…
Although science.tv has been some three years in the making, we’re still in the very early stages. The site is live, but it should probably be labelled ‘alpha version’ because, in terms of functionality, it’s only about 10% of what’s to come. And in terms of content, it’s even less developed.
The content that’s on the site at the moment is admittedly something of a mixed bag. It actually represents one small part of science.tv – fun resources for teachers to use in classes to demonstrate phenomena. The few films that have been uploaded or linked have come from the focus group of teachers involved in the project.
We did some interesting research a while back on what ‘science’ means to different kinds of people. For scientists and academics, it’s about pursuit of the truth via the scientific method; for pretty much everyone else, it’s actually more about the products of science. What’s also interesting is the meaning of ‘experiment’, and what seems to be taught to school students is not experimentation at all, but the ‘correct’ performance of rituals with set outcomes.
This is way too big a problem for a bunch of film makers and computer programmers in Bristol to address. All we can do is provide a platform for a whole load of new experiments in science communication. It’s not up to us to dictate that scientists should do more to reach audiences outside of their immediate networks. What we can do is help them to find not only the audience, but also the specialist film-makers – people who want to make more challenging science content but who have been bound by the dumbed-down, mass-media model of broadcast TV for the past three decades.
So all I can say is watch this space. There is content coming over the next few weeks, from a variety of sources. But if you really want to help us, then please sign up and upload your films. Check out the categorisation of content, the tagging and the search functionality and if there’s anything missing then let us know and we’ll do our best to include it in later releases.
Matt Thurling
[mt][at][science.tv]
Forgot to mention, you can also check out (and submit to) the wikipedia article
Thanks Matt, nice work!
This is a problem is too big for a group of film production and computer programming at home in Bristol, all we can do is provide a platform for a lot of new tests in science communication. Not for us to say that scientists should do more to reach an audience outside their immediate network. What can we do to help them find not only the public but also for professionals in film production – they want to make science content more difficult. But who is dumb – in the media for transmission of TV. Over the past three decades.