WELCOME TO (the new) CITIZENTUBE!
For those of you who've been paying attention to political content on YouTube over the past year, you may have spent some time on Citizentube - our official political video blog. We've been using that YouTube channel as a way to connect with you about our political programming both in the U.S. and abroad. Today, we're launching the new and improved Citizentube - a blog where we'll keep you regularly updated on the latest and greatest in YouTube politics as we see it.
Back when we launched Citizentube, "YouTube politics" was little more than 'gotcha' videos - like the famous "Macaca" moment, John Edwards feeling pretty, or Senator Conrad Burns falling asleep in committee meetings.
But since then, YouTube has become entrenched in the American political vernacular. While citizens have continued to use YouTube to make the political process more transparent, the candidates have followed them on to the site. Seven presidential candidates announced their candidacies on YouTube. Campaigns further down on the ballot have rushed to the site, creating campaign channels for national, state, and local elections. News organizations like the Associated Press and the New York Times regularly upload their political footage to Youtube, as do bloggers, activists, lobbyists and more and more everyday people who want to join in the political discussion. YouTube has, in some very real ways, become the 21st century townhall for political discussion.
We've barely been able to keep up with the pace of it all. We expanded our programming to include two presidential primary debates (we also took the format abroad to places like Spain and London); we broadcast voters' campaign trail videos in Iowa, New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday and most recently in Pennsylvania; and we opened up the World Economic Forum with "The Davos Question". But no matter what we or anyone does, political activity on YouTube has a life of its own. In fact, that's what defines it in the first place - YouTube is a platform for all political content and opinions.
So far we've been chronicling some of that activity on our video blog, but today we're launching Citizentube the blog to do a more timely job. What can you expect to find here? We'll link out to the latest and greatest in YouTube politics as we see it unfold. We'll keep you up to date with the programming we're running. And we'll point to political trends as they develop, highlighting YouTube users who are doing particularly innovative things.
We know from the start we'll be missing a lot - YouTube politics is far too large and chaotic a universe for anyone to keep track of - but we'd love your help in identifying the best content out there. If you have a tip for Citizentube, please send it to citizentube@youtube.com.
If you like what you're seeing, subscribe to our RSS feed to get a daily update on what we're posting...
Yours,
Steve Grove
YouTube News and Politics
6 comments:
Woo Steve (and McMillan) and company!
Great idea!
I'll keep my eye on this page - I'm excited to see what gets spotlighted.
-Trevor/maddogza
Awesome to see this, Steve. CitizenTube is now the most recent entry on my Google Reader.
(Reading this post on Blogger after getting notified about it via Gmail seems to show an underlying technological trend...)
Anyway, you guys have done an awesome job with things of late - I was especially impressed to see what you guys are doing with the BBC and the London Mayoral race. Can't wait to see (and read about) more!
- Ben R.
Rock on Steve. This is a far easier format to keep up with. I'll definitely be following your posts. Cheers.
I notice the issues in the banner are moderate to left leaning... interesting. Nothing about life, our second amendment, or personal liberties. Just an observation.
If Youtube wanted to do a public service they'd encourage people to go to campaign events and ask the questions that the MSM is too corrupt to ask. The MSM includes CNN and CSPAN, two Youtube partners that ran contests and then selected the wimpiest questions of the bunch. Regarding the CNN debacle, see these:
youtube.com/watch?v=nIbDAVQMKGM
youtube.com/watch?v=wm0uWz2BS9M
If someone who's familiar with the issue and who isn't afraid to ask real questions ever engages one of the top three candidates on immigration, the candidate is going to end up looking very bad since all three of them have offered unworkable proposals and have frequently lied or made misleading or incomplete statements. Perhaps Youtube is afraid of encouraging people to ask real questions lest they lose their access. Or, maybe it's something else.
Hi Steve,
I'd like to identifying some very important content. The MSM has not given this fair coverage at all. See my last two videos. There is something VERY wrong with MSM for not reporting these critical facts, like about the British sailors:
Please see this video: Media Reform is probably the most important issue Look how US mainstream media is basically ignoring the news that the 15 British sailors detained by Iran last year were not in Iraqi waters (this is just the latest example of US mainstream media malpractice)
And this one:
Sounding the Alarm: Stop the War President Now "sound the alarm. The saber rattling is going on by this administration. The remarks that we're hearing day in and day out are more accusatory toward Iran."
"We know where this is going. We know what this means." "We all know that U.S. strikes against Iran would be disastrous." - Rep. Maxine Waters April 15, 2008
These are VERY serious topics, and YouTubers really appreciate that I am providing facts they are not hearing in MSM. I get MANY, MANY positive comments from people. And my videos get highly ranked, the latest is #11 - Top Rated (Today) - News & Politics. I think this is because I am giving people vital information. Please consider featuring these videos, many more people need to hear these facts, (my subscribers want others to hear these facts too) and that is only going to happen if I get featured the same way davisfleetwood had been repeatedly featured.
Sincerely,
Tom Murphy
Representative Press
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