Want a Free Education? A Brief Guide to the Burgeoning World of Online Video Lectures

By Jeffrey MacIntyre, Boston Globe

11/2/08

Reserve another laurel for Edward O. Wilson, the Pellegrino University Professor emeritus at Harvard, serial Pulitzer winner, and prominent intellectual: online celebrity.

Forget Charlie Rose - Wilson has Google for a soapbox. Amid the amateur-hour piffle of YouTube "talent" and skateboarding dogs, the famed botanist stands in bold relief, with more than 500 Google video search results to his credit: Interviews ranging far afield of TV shows to a spate of appearances on several Web-only video platforms such as Meaningoflife.tv, Bigthink.com, Fora.tv, and the online home of the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference.