Online video is great. Being able to watch snippets of shows, videos, and more has become habit-forming for most of the internet denizens. That said, sometimes the videos on YouTube can be … well … lowbrow. Sure, there’s intellectual content to be found there, but you’ve got to wade through a ton of videos of regular joes singing into their video cameras to find it. Enter FORA.tv. This raises the intellectual discourse of online video to new highs. FORA.tv features videos from a constantly growing library of political, social and cultural topics — from political debates to author readings or interviews with noted guests, FORA.tv has it. In addition, FORA.tv’s interface allows users to segment longer programs into “chapters” for easy viewing of snippets, and their interface also can provide a complete transcript as well.

Over the course of history, there are been a few noble quests. The search for the Holy Grail, for example, might qualify. While such a grail may or may not actually exist, there have been several other more scientific quests, none perhaps as noble as trying to find a chocolate that’s actually good for you. Well, fear not, the fine folks at PerfectChocolate.ca claim to have found it. Citing research that unprocessed dark chocolate has been proven as superior anti-oxidant, they’ve created a raspberry/chocolate truffle they assert is so low in sugar it’s safe even for diabetics. “The Doctor’s Chocalate” as they call it at PerfectChocolate.ca also claims to be proven to reduce stress and tension among other healthy side-effects. Now that’s the kind of yummy that might actually do wonders for your tummy!

There’s some interesting things being done with the information from the Open Directory Project, the largest human-edited directory of the web. In addition to ODP data being used to supplement many of the world’s largest search engines like Google, Alexa and AOL search, smaller sites like Zitku.info are getting into the game. Using ODP data as a starting point, Zitku.info generates demographical reports for webmasters who can view reports or speak with a Zitku.info website analyzer about their website, traffic reports, security issues and more. Of course, Zitku.info also provides a search function, with a twist. Beyond just any old search, if what you searched for happens to be a Wikipedia entry (like “Baseball” or “Star Trek”), it also displays the full text of that entry below the search results.

News from the Community Portal from the last couple days — Yesterday we started working on the search bar stylesheets to create one unified search bar at the top of the page. While it’s working in some browsers, we are aware that it’s acting strangely in others. Please report any unusual behavior to SearchBarAnamolies, listing what operating system and browser you are using so that we can try to replicate and fix the problems… AboutUs is hiring! We’re currently looking for a talented web designer. Take a look on our Jobs page for more info….

While pages for subdomains commonly found on places like BlogSpot.com and MySpace.com (in the form of yourname.blogspot.com or www.myspace.com/yourname) aren’t automatically generated by the AboutUs system on a search, it is possible to make subdomain pages by hand. And if that seems a little daunting, that’s why we have so many helpful community members spending a good part of the day in our IRC chat channel. The other day someone from Hollowshrine.uni.cc popped into the AboutUs IRC via our web-based IRC chat, needing help starting their page. Within minutes a subdomain page was set up for them and they were ready to go to town. And go to town they did, in less than an hour they made a fully-formed page about their great little community of anime and gaming enthusiasts. Their page contains a thorough history of the site, a logo, and a list of their various services, blogs and forums. Awesome work and a lot of great information. Be sure to check them out at Hollowshrine.uni.cc.

Got a question for AboutUs or the community? We offer a chatline via an IRC channel on FreeNode.net. Drop by and say hi to us at: irc.freenode.net; #AboutUs. If you’re not familiar with IRC, we also offer a web-based IRC chat thanks to MiCCAS.net, click here for live web-chat. Chat support isn’t quite 24 hrs, but most of the time someone is online to take your questions or comments.

If you’ve flipped around AboutUs for awhile you might notice that many of the AboutUs Staff and other community members have caricatures of our lovely visages adorning out “user” pages. These silly tributes are thanks to Rhoda Grossman, artist and owner of DigitalPainting.com. Creating the works digitally in Photoshop and Painter, Rhoda has become the de facto caricature artist for AboutUs, ICANNwiki and WikiIndex.org. In addition, she has also written and co-authored around a dozen books and tutorials on creative uses for these digital graphics and painting applications.

Ah, love. If only it was as easy to find your true love as it is to load a website. Maybe technology hasn’t caught up with Cupid’s mighty arrows yet, but we do try don’t we. Well trying isn’t a bad thing and neither are websites that hope to help you find true love. At AboutUs, we’re currently stricken with Lovestriken.com, a new Canadian online dating community that recently updated their wiki page with some cute little lips icons that give the page some real zest. Lovestriken.com tries to offer a more personalized and human experience to the online dating scene, as well as a place where men and women can become friends first and then get closer. Lovestriken.com is owned by VersatileVisions.com (who also did some nice work on their wiki page), a small Canadian corporation specializing in online dating, with a couple of other dating oriented sites — Tuesdaysdate.com and Datepetlovers.com.

It’s been awhile since we’ve updated with news from the CommunityPortal, but it’s been anything but inactive. Let’s catchup on the last week… Wiki is now a word according to the Oxford English Dictionary … ICANN issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com’s Registration Accreditation Agreement, see former featured wiki article RegisterFlies.com for more info on the RegisterFly.com debacle… AdBrite ads are now turned on in another step to becoming a self-sustaining website. Please leave comments about your experiences on the AdBrite.com page… and a CommunityNeeds page has been created for the community to provide input on what projects the AboutUs team are working are priorties. Please add your insights.

As we’re now fully in the “information age” of the internet and technology, it’s important to realize that tools such as the internet and high-speed connectivity weren’t designed for just a select few. Groups like The Chicago Digital Access Alliance/DigitalAccessAlliance.org are helping to forward this awareness. Calling for universal access and high-speed connectivity as a public right and necessity in this day and age is part of the 10 principles espoused by this Chicago-based community group to help guide the city’s pursuit of a city-wide wireless internet program. Bravo to The Chicago Digital Access Alliance and other groups like Minneapolis’ DigitalAccess.org in their fights to strengthen their community by including all of the community in the internet age, and check out the DigitalAccessAlliance.org wiki page for a complete listing of their “10 Principles for Digital Excellence.”