YouTube Guns for Your Pocket

For the medical professional who also happens to be a tech geek, get ready for some fun. YouTube announced that it is making a mobile version of its videos available to all mobile phones. You know, because you have so much free time during the day.

The new mobile version of YouTube provides interested amateur video fanatics the opportunity to view most of the tens of millions of videos on the site directly from a mobile phone. A few caveats apply.

First, your phone has to be able to stream video content. Not all phones can, especially those that are entry-level, or even mid-level. Second, it has to be able to access a high-speed 3G wireless network. If you're an AT&T customer, this means it has to have HSDPA. If you're a Sprint or Verizon Wireless customer, the phone has to have EV-DO. If you're a T-Mobile customer, you're out of luck since T-Mobile doesn't have an operational 3G network available just yet. If you're not sure your phone is 3G capable, call your provider to check. Many smartphones and high-end feature phones, however, are 3G enabled. YouTube did not specifically state that video can be streamed via Wi-Fi.

Okay, now that the boring tech-y stuff is out of the way, on to the juicy details. The new mobile site (located at http://m.youtube.com) will let you log into your YouTube account, manage your channel subscriptions, set up links to your favorite videos, or browse away to your heart's content.

In a New York Times interview, YouTube product manager Hunter Walk said, "The mobile experience will be much closer to the Web experience. We want more and more people try mobile video for the first time."

Of course, streaming video to your cell phone uses up a heck of a lot of wireless data. Unless you like nasty surprises in the form of astronomical cell phone bills in your mailbox each month, it is highly recommended that you have an unlimited wireless data plan.

For now, the site is free to use and users won't even be burdened with advertising. Who knows how long that will last, this is a Google-owned property, after all.

So feel free to log on and enjoy. Just don't forget to get back to work. Eventually.