YouTube has just announced on its blog the launch of YouTube Direct, design to empower the ever growing citizen journalism movement. Self describe by YouTube as “a new tool that allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users”, YouTube Direct is poised to link videographers and media outlets in a virtual video marketplace of user generated video content.
YouTube Direct will change how media outlets capture and report the news. The new platform allows news organizations to expand their coverage areas with citizen journalism at little to now cost. ABC News, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, NPR, and San Francisco Chronicle are among the organizations already using the platform and now you can too.
YouTube’s provided the following demo of how it works:
Obviously one of the biggest initial concerns that the mass adoption of this platform brings to mind is credibility of the video news that’s being reported. As seen in the clip above, YouTube Direct does have a review and approval capability for news organizations to weed out the bogus media. In addition, since YouTube Direct is an open source tool organizations and developers can customize the submission, review and approval processes to fit their needs.
Some other key features of YouTube Direct include:
- Built on the YouTube API, this 100% open-source solution provides you with an easily-integrated audience engagement platform for your website
- The customizable interface allows you to tailor the look and feel of the tool precisely to your audience
- Visitors can answer your call for content by uploading their videos to YouTube via your site without leaving the page
- A moderation panel enables your editors to review and approve/reject all submitted videos, deciding which ones meet your organization’s editorial criteria
- All videos approved by your editors include a link back to your site when viewed on YouTube
This new tool will be accessible to not only media and news organizations, but any site looking to accept user generated video content.
YouTube Direct has released a few resource pages to get more information on the new platform. The project page for developers is located here: http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/ytdirect.html. And you can also check out their FAQ.
For a more detailed developers view of YouTube Direct, see the screencast below from Amanda Surya of Google Development Programs:
To quote YouTube’s official blog:
The opportunities to use the tool are as broad as the media spectrum itself.
This is clearly an innovation that will change the news and media industry forever. YouTube rocks!
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