Zoo Atlanta has made a dynamic change to its Web site, zooatlanta.org. After a trial run last month where it was tested by a select audience, Zoo Tube has officially debuted. Zoo Tube is an interactive video panel that allows you to see short videos-on-demand about Zoo Atlanta. It also displays links to other zooatlanta.org pages that correspond to the topics being discussed in the video. This exciting addition makes zooatlanta.org a pioneer in interactive technologies on the Web and allows Web site visitors to have even more control of their Web-surfing experience.

Zoo Tube offers several different video options including a general video about the zoo and videos about upcoming events, membership, and venue rentals. While these videos are playing, corresponding links pop up that, when clicked, direct the viewer to a Web page for more information about the topic of interest.

After the September 6, 2006 birth of giant panda cub Mei Lan, zooatlanta.org received a surge of visitors eager to catch a glimpse of the new cub on pandacam. This demand resulted in 11,370,353 visits to pandacam and 3,493,315 visits to the text-based giant panda updates. Due to the increased popularity of the Web site, Zoo Atlanta recognized a need to more efficiently share video and information with the public and began working on the Zoo Tube project. The potential uses for Zoo Tube to not only share educational information, but also to share entertaining videos of Zoo Atlanta’s animal stars, are limitless.