My favorite video catching hack now comes from Yahoo!, thanks to the search engine giant's acquisition of Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking service.

For months, Del.icio.us has been a chief discovery tool for me to find new video and audio. It's always refreshing to see what pops up.

Last night I saw a parody of Steve Jobs introduce the "invisible iPod," on SNL's Weekend Update. I saw Jelly D, the rapping pastry. He's a guy dressed up as a jelly donut who made it to the semi's of a freestyle rapping competition in Oakland. A woman sang and played the harp with an animated blackboard featurng sailing ships and flying doves. I saw a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in his younger days as Mr. Universe on a trip to Carnivale in Rio where he teaches a Brazilian woman some new words using a carrot stick as a prop. A quite insightful look at the California governor.

I've watched a Green Day music video "When September Comes," and "Some Postman," by Presidents of the United States of America.

I don't ever know what will appear. It all depends on what people post to Del.icio.us. The Del.icio.us hack works like this:

I go to Del.icio.us and look for tag words associated with the file format I am searching. For instance, I started watching music videos in June over my desktop. I first created an addres: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov

I then added a tag: "music video." The url looks like this. The tag is in bold: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo

The address takes you to the web page where you may subscribe to ther RSS feed: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo

Copy the RSS feed into iTunes (under avanced) and the videos start appearing as people post to Del.icio.us according to the tag "music video."

In podcasting, still one of the greatest challenges comes as more people start making shows. What is worth watching? Recommendations help. And recommendations through tags works beautifully.

Tags also help extend the meaning of a podcast. I can subscribe to shows I like through podcast directories or by visiting the individual's site. Chris Pirillo, Adam Curry, Rocketboom are all in my iTunes because I have subscribed to their feeds.

But with tags I can listen to podcasts that perhaps may not even have their own RSS feeds. They are collections of links that are either audio or video files that people have tagged. Del.icio.us does the job of providing the RSS feed. And through that process, I am opened up to a whole new universe of shows and programs that appear automatically in iTunes, the same way as a traditional podcast.

What does this mean for Yahoo!? It means that they have an advantage as far as I can tell in the podcasting space. I can use services like Del.icio.us to discover new shows. It also adds value to iTunes in it keeps me going there to see what funky new stuff is showing up. And it takes me out of the traditional podcast paradigm. I am now consuming shows that may not necessarily fit the standard podcast construct. They may not even have RSS feeds. And I am getting grass roots media that is recommended by people, not editors. It's not that I don't like editor recommendations. But I often find that everyone is an editor thes days. So, why should I limit myself to what the traditional mediia suggests?

I love to use Del.icio.us hacks. Do you have one?