Everyone knows YouTube, but not everyone knows how to enhance the experience of using the popular video site. The Web is rife with unique tools and add-ons that really help you discover what’s possible and even take a few slices with you.
BestofYouTube
Taking the most popular videos on YouTube and then separating them based on when they were released, BestofYouTube is a site that basically does just that. You can see the top clips for today, yesterday, the week, the month, the year and even all time. Some classics are definitely on there. There’s even a link to random videos that have been posted. Even more classics to be had on there.
Gazzump
This is one of the best YouTube video and audio download tools I’ve come across. Not only is Gazzump free and entirely Web-based, but it also provides you with plenty of choices on how you want the content served to you. For instance, if there’s a music video or concert on the site that you want, you can convert the high-quality version (if there is one, at least) to MP3 or WAV format. Ditto with video, since you have file formats like WMV, MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV and 3GP at your disposal.
YouTube Doubler
This site allows you to play or “mashup” two YouTube videos simultaneously. You might be wondering why there would be a need for something like YouTube Doubler, but it’s really all in good fun, and you might even surprise yourself with what’s possible. You can input the URLs, determine the starting point for both videos, and then watch them go side-by-side.
GifSoup
Creating your own animated GIFs out of any YouTube video you want is made easy with GifSoup, a site dedicated to capturing 10-second long clips. GIFs can be used when chatting online, in email and a variety of other ways. You can create an account and start creating your own GIFs for free, but you will have to deal with limits and a watermark. Sign up and pay $2.95 per month, and you get unfettered access.
Ibizaah!
This is an interesting site that basically gives you the opportunity to play DJ with YouTube videos. You set up two playlists side-by-side and then have them loop or even play together two videos at a time. Ibizaah! even has a siren button at the top to make it sound more authentically club-like. Letting this go on your PC or Mac can be taxing, so it’s best you don’t have too many apps open when running this.
