It’s true: TED tends to dominate our cultural landscape.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design: three areas that are profoundly influencing our future (in case you were curious).

Across the globe, anyone can watch any of the 1500+ TED Talks through TED.com, its YouTube channel, mobile apps or iTunes podcasts. (All of the talks are catalogued on a massive spreadsheet.)

But, the web, like our universe, never fails to inspire and delight.

For June’s Friday diversion blog post, we bring you our top 10 cultural and educational video sites. Which ones caught you by surprise?

 

1. Academic Earth: Users of this site are urged to explore academic videos from top-notch universities. Academic Earth takes learning outside the classroom with their original series of thought-provoking videos, designed to spark intellectual curiosity and start a conversation.
2. Arkive.org: Explore 15,000 of the world’s endangered species. With over 100,000 photos and videos, discover what these animals, plants and fungi look like, what makes them special and why we should protect them.
3. BigThink: Offers high quality video interviews and insights from the world’s most influential thought-leaders. The site can be considered an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet. Topics are organized under the following themes: New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
4. CultureCatch: Since 2005, this site has been posting provocative, insightful, and entertaining conversations, reviews, and performances. Anyone looking to be stimulated and educated by fantastic art, music, literature, film, and theatre should bookmark CultureCatch.
5. EUscreen: EUscreen offers free online access to videos, stills, texts and audio from European broadcasters and audiovisual archives. Explore selected content from early 1900s until present day.
6. @Google Talks: The world’s leading thinkers and political players all make a point of speaking at Google. You can catch them all here.
7. Global Oneness Project: The Global Oneness Project is a digital, ad-free, bi-monthly magazine. Through stories, the project explores the threads that connect culture, ecology, and beauty. Their collection of films, photography, and essays feature diverse and dynamic voices from around the world.
8. NFB.ca: Our list wouldn’t be complete without the National Film Board of Canada. This site offers access to hundreds of documentaries, animated films and trailers. There’s also a free iPhone app.
9. PopTech brings together a global community of innovators from many fields to share insights and work together to create lasting change. Like TED, PopTech convenes annual conferences. For 2013, the topic is: Sparks of Brilliance.[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/56993780″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″]
10. UbuWeb: Founded in November of 1996, UbuWeb was initially a repository for visual, concrete and, later, sound poetry. Over the years, UbuWeb has embraced all forms of the avant-garde and beyond. Its parameters continue to expand in all directions. The site is filled with the detritus and ephemera of great artists—the music of Jean Dubuffet, the poetry of Dan Graham, Julian Schnabel’s country music, the punk rock of Martin Kippenberger, the diaries of John Lennon, the rants of Karen Finley, and pop songs by Joseph Beuys. UbuWeb hosts over 7,500 artists and several thousand works of art.

Photo credit: randy_harris; via photopin; cc