YouTube

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 1:30pm on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

YouTube Launches Citizen Journalist Channel

The Hollywood Reporter reported on November 17, 2009:

"The world's top purveyor of Internet video has launched YouTube Direct, whereby TV and online news editors can obtain video from so-called "citizen journalists" -- and even request such video be shot by amateurs seeking attention.

It's not entirely about celebrities. Many news outlets will be seeking disaster footage, for example, or rowdy behavior at political town hall meetings.

News outlets seeking footage can announce it in a variety of ways, including via call-out videos posted at YouTube. When a YouTube user has video they think will interest the mainstream media, it can make it easy for editors, producers and journalists to contact them.

"News organizations always want to verify the content they use," said Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube.

YouTube Direct isn't a revenue play -- either for YouTube or its users, Grove said. "It's an incentive to upload great video, because of the recognition you'll get from legitimate news organizations," he said."

The full story:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i6b92ac9c285d017657c7f85cd020717f

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 10:16pm on Saturday, October 10th, 2009

YouTube is turning video piracy into revenue, according to a story in the New York Times from October 6, 2009:

"YouTube appears to be mastering the art of turning video piracy into revenue for itself and its partners.

For years, the clips of television shows, music videos and other copyrighted content that users uploaded to YouTube without permission were a source of tension between Google, which owns YouTube, and media companies, which owned the copyrights.

But since last year, a growing number of media companies have stopped insisting that YouTube take down those unauthorized clips. Instead, they are choosing to claim the videos as their own, and allowing YouTube to sell advertising when people watch them. The revenue is split between YouTube and the content owners."

The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/technology/internet/07youtube.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 12:51pm on Monday, August 10th, 2009

YouTube is getting into the local TV news business, the New York Times reported on August 2, 2009:

"With its ability to collect articles and sell advertisements against them, Google has already become a huge force in the news business — and the scourge of many newspapers. Now its subsidiary YouTube wants to do the same thing to local television.

YouTube, which already boasts of being “the biggest news platform in the world,” has created a News Near You feature that senses a user’s location and serves up a list of relevant videos. In time, it could essentially engineer a local newscast on the fly. It is already distributing hometown video from dozens of sources, and it wants to add thousands more.

YouTube says it is helping TV stations and its other partners by creating a new — but so far not fiscally significant — source of revenue."

The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/business/media/03youtube.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 6:00pm on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

YouTube has launched a service for training journalists called the "YouTube Reporters' Center," the company announced on June 29, 2009.

In partnership with several top news and media organizations, YouTube has launched the YouTube Reporters' Center (http://www.youtube.com/reporterscenter), a dedicated channel that features how-to videos on news reporting created by some of the industry's most respected journalists and media experts. A one-stop-shop for journalism training online, the YouTube Reporters' Center covers a wide range of topics, from preparing for interviews, to fact-checking, to journalistic ethics.

"For the first time on YouTube, veteran journalists are making themselves openly available to aspiring reporters around the world who want to report on the news and events happening around them," said Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube. "As current events demonstrate on a daily basis, citizen-reporting on YouTube is a critical part of today's media landscape -- and the YouTube Reporters' Center will help foster an even more productive relationship between professionals and these aspiring reporters."

Visitors to the center can browse through over two dozen how-to videos made by the experts for the Reporters' Center. Citizens with reporting experiences are invited to share the lessons they've learned by adding their own how-to videos for inclusion on the site.

News organizations who are not currently YouTube partners can apply to the YouTube partner program, through a new outreach program launched today as well -- for more details, see this blog post: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/call-to-news-publishers-how-to-share.html.