I thought it was silly when I first heard about it through TechCrunch, but then I watched one of my own videos through the "1911" lens (a recent Emerging Tech Talk video) and I do have to admit that it is amusing and clever... just click on the "1911" button in the lower right corner of any video that has it (you can click on this image to see one)...
... and immediately you are transported back into a time of grainy, sepia-toned silent films where someone played ragtime piano music while you viewed the film.
Now in the case of my video, the effect is also completely useless, because you can't hear a word of what the person is saying.
Still, it's a fun hack to see for a moment, anyway. Kudos to the YouTube team for coming up with something fun.
P.S. YouTube has a blog post up about 1911...
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