Every online publisher is just a series of mouse clicks away from starting their own bureau of citizen reporters - without having to sacrifice editorial control.
With YouTube Direct, editors can embed YouTube’s video screen to their own website and invite their readers to send footage to a vetting console for it to be shown.
This means media and newspaper websites can now enlist their visitors as roving video reporters, while being able to review and edit the submitted film before it plays.
Just as news suppliers might invite and then stream a reader’s clip, assuming it meets their editorial criteria, non-profit groups might reach out for clips showing their cause.
Businesses, and particularly their marketers, are also likely to embrace the widget, as embedding it online will allow customers to upload videos promoting their brand.
The potential hosts of YouTube Direct are almost as numerous as the different types of portal that exist, and the number of promotional ways that it could be used.
But the Google-owned developer signalled it was primarily thinking of the news and media outlets who had asked to connect to YouTube videos to enhance their coverage.
The editors of these outlets have had their wish granted, as any video on the YouTube network can now be reproduced on their own website, regardless of who uploaded it.
The tool is likely to win the most praise from those media outlets whose resources would not typically stretch to online video, or to a network of freelance, citizen reporters.
Anyone with a cameraphone and a YouTube account can start sending ‘news’ to media providers using the free service, which was road-tested by a range of US titles.
Nov 20, 2009
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