May 7, 2008
In praise of ... TED
Those who sneer at YouTube as a haven for bored teenagers, sneezing pandas and the terminally extroverted are behind the times, writes The Guardian.
"YouTube is not the only picture house in town; TED - nominated for three of the Webby awards that will be announced today - is proof of the appetite for knowledge and debate that confounds cynics who dismiss video-sharing as a spiral of aggression and idiocy.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) began life as an annual conference in California 24 years ago. It challenges 50 participants each to deliver "the talk of their lives" in 18 minutes. The best are now made available on ted.com, and an extraordinary assortment they are: from an 11-year-old Taiwanese violinist to James Watson talking about the discovery of the structure of DNA and Al Gore's thoughts on climate change (though politicians are generally, and perhaps rightly, absent).
What emerges is a spirit of inquiry and optimism that is American in the best sense.
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