I suppose there’s a grumpy old man inside me already, because try as I might, I’m just not wild about “Web Two-point-oh.” Social bookmarking, social networking, social journal-keeping, social “mashing together the fugliest animated GIF mess possible and calling it ‘a Myspace’ for your friends to envy” — I can do without it. But for all that bitterness, there’s one overwhelming exception to the rule: I really love YouTube. Everything about the service from top to bottom is nothing short of divine (excepting the brain-dead user comments, of course!). And hey, with the videos themselves carrying a none-too-demanding pixel count, a mobile YouTube client is really the perfect candidate for a must-have smartphone application. We’ve seen some faltering competitors in this arena before, but emTube for S60 is absolutely not one of them. I’m going to give you guys a brief rundown of why this program belongs on your S60 smartphone without question if you pack one, and why you might want to start thinking Finnish if you don’t.

There’s not a lot of detailed technical stuff to deal with here: emTube’s hard-working developer, Sebastian Jedruszkiewicz, has taken care of the tough parts for you. Run the installer and let the good times roll, baby. You’ll notice that the application presents a very clean, “S60-like” look — it fits in quite well with the rest of the operating system, and comes across as a dead ringer for something Nokia themselves could have included with your smartphone. Search works reliably, and fast access to YouTube’s Featured, Top Rated, and Most Viewed videos are right at your fingertips. Keeping a finger on the beating pulse of online viral video humor has never been more doable.

If you’ve heard uncomfortable rumblings in the past about a “mobile version of YouTube,” forget them. emTube pulls from the full YouTube video library, and the quality of the flicks themselves is nice. Obviously you don’t plug into YouTube expecting a high-fidelity A/V experience, but I’m finding myself enjoying emTube so much that I’m using it nearly as often as the regular browser-based service on a PC.

emTube manages video downloads in remarkably thoughtful fashion. As soon as you mash the “View” button, the program tells you the video’s filesize, its length, and shows a percentage-complete meter… letting you control when the video begins playing, and taking care to allow adequate time for it to buffer based on your data connection. This management style has been thirty-one flavors of terrific for me and for the rest of the S60-loving Americans stuck on ancient EDGE data networks. I can tell a video to start downloading (knowing full well it’ll take some time to trickle across the EDGE pipe), and kick emTube into the background while using my device for whatever else I need. Those of you out there using unlocked N95-3s on AT&T’s American flavor HSDPA network (all six of you!), I’m truly envious: you’ve essentially harnessed unfettered YouTube access anywhere you go.

While that stuff’s all great, the real star of the show here is emTube’s “Saved videos” feature. If you’re a Tube junkie, I’d be willing to make a bet with you. I would bet that you’ve found yourself out with friends before saying “Hey, did you guys see that ridiculous (video-X) on YouTube? No? Oh what a bummer, it’s so funny, (person-Y) was totally doing (event-Z)! I’ll have to send you a link tomorrow, remind me! I won’t forget, but remind me to send you that!”

You forgot, and they didn’t remind you.

The beauty here is that anything you pull down over WiFi at home, work, or wherever 802.11 lurks can be saved to your smartphone’s memory card. Two keystrokes and zero hassle later, you’ve got “Flea Market Montgomery Dance” in your pocket and prepped for instant playback regardless of what kind of data connection you have available. That’s impressive.

The critics might mention YouTube’s official mobile app because it’s tied to your YT account, but they’d be selling themselves short. There’s a community-built YouTube solution available for Windows Mobile as well, but my experiences with it have shown it to be dodgy, unintuitive, and a good bit less-polished than emTube. Even the Apple iPhone falls short in terms of the utility offered by saving videos, in spite of its officially-sanctioned YouTube experience and enormous glass screen for viewing.

There’s a new sheriff in town, and its name is emTube. Get you some: http://www.emtube.yoyo.pl/ (Freeware)