…making it not so secret after all.
According to a blogger with the SF Appeal, YouTube sent out a letter asking for help with a ‘super secret project’:
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 2:20 PM < [Redacted]@youtube.com> wrote:
Hi xxx,
I am leading a project at YouTube and I thought you might like to be a part of it. [Redacted] gave me your contact information. For the months of July and August, YouTube is going local in San Francisco to encourage citizen videographers — anyone with a video-capable phone or camera, really, — to help cover San Francisco’s news, issues and events and we want local news sites to join us.
If you’re interested, I’m rounding up a group of San Francisco bloggers, writers and digital journalists next week to speak about the project in more detail in person. Please let me know which dates work for you here [see below image]:
They chose a particularly ironic title. As a precaution, I would like to add that we’ve not yet launched this project publicly yet, so please be discreet about who you speak with about it.
Cheers,
[Redacted]
YouTube News Ass
Of course, said blogger promptly published the letter (I mean, come on? What did they THINK was gonna happen, telling a blogger something is super secret??)
All Things Digital did a little digging and got some more info:
that staffers at the Google (GOOG) site have tapped local bloggers, reporters, etc., to gauge their interest in a project whereby “citizen videographers–anyone with a video-capable phone or camera, really”–help cover local news.Since the YouTube folks have been vague about what they’re up to and have told potential participants to “be discreet about who you speak with about it,” the whole thing sounds vaguely ominous/exciting.
C-NET reports:
YouTube is working with a San Francisco TV station to a launch a new iteration of its YouTube Direct platform, a person familiar with the site’s plans tells me.
YouTube Direct is supposed to help publishers gather and distribute video from amateur contributors, by essentially plugging YouTube into their sites. The program has had a bit of a success when big media organizations like NPR or ABC’s Good Morning America have used it.
But local news outlets, which could theoretically really use help from both YouTube and their own readers/watchers, haven’t done much with it. So the idea is to use the San Francisco version as a showcase, and YouTube staffers are trying to pre-seed the effort by rounding up local contributors.
And finally, YouTube’s comment after the fact is officially in:
We launched YouTube Direct in November, and it’s been a great way for news organizations to easily leverage citizen reporting on YouTube. We’re currently experimenting with new ways to make the platform more useful, and we’ll have more to announce on that front soon.
Google is supposed to make an official announcement about the program next week, so stay tuned!
Tags: blogging, Google, YouTube, YouTubeDirect