TED - Ideas Worth Spreading...

TED.com

Their catch line: Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world.

Needless to say that caught my attention because: 1) I like to hear interesting people talk and 2) I like to share ... so a site like this is a little bit of Nirvana come my way. (I hope you will think so too.)

Here's the concept: TED stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design" and is actually an annual conference that was started in 1984 to bring together folks in these three disciplines.

Since that time, the scope of the conference has broadened and the annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

TED's mission: Spreading ideas.

They do this by making the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 400 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

There is a TED blog, you can subscribe to TEDtalks with an RSS feed, you can join (for free) the TED community and save your favorite talks, discuss your ideas, get the newsletter and more.

You can search TED by themes, speakers, talks, and translations. Each of those categories has several ways to limit results including things like: "rated jaw-dropping" and "most discussed".

Here is a talk I listened to that has forever changed the way I will look at the art of crochet, coral reefs, and geometry. Check it out: