Google and Youtube

From The New York Times:

Google to Put YouTube Videos on Its Ad Network
By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: October 9, 2007

"SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 8 — Google is taking the first steps toward turning its powerful advertising network, which places ads on hundreds of thousands of Internet sites, into a system for distributing content — and more ads — across the Web.
The Internet search giant is expected to introduce a service on Tuesday to allow Web sites in its ad network to embed relevant videos from some YouTube content creators. A Web site or blog specializing in hiking, for instance, might choose to embed hiking videos from YouTube.
The service, which represents the first major combination of a Google product with YouTube, will give video creators wide distribution beyond YouTube via Google’s network, known as AdSense. Since the videos will be surrounded by ads, the service is another way for Google to cash in on the huge number of video clips stored on YouTube.
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See also The Guardian on the same story...
"Google has begun allowing advertisers to "embed" clips from YouTube into their promotional messages, a sign of the search company's strategy to make money from its video streaming arm."

Slate Magazine on Youtube

YouTube's Dark Side
HOW THE VIDEO-SHARING SITE STIFLES CREATIVITY.
By Nick Douglas:

"The Internet was supposed to make the video world egalitarian. No longer would an oligarchy of content providers—a few TV networks, a couple of major movie studios—control what we watch. The Web gives creative people a potential audience of millions, as well as countless venues to display their creations. But that's not how things turned out. Web video isn't an oligarchy, it's a dictatorship. You're either on YouTube or nobody's watching. This dominance has a downside: The popular misapprehension that YouTube and Web video are synonymous has limited our sense of what online video can be."

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Republican candidates and CNN Youtube debate

From The New York Times:

"The Republicans’ presidential YouTube debate, scheduled for Sept. 17 in Florida, may move to another date, given reservations that some of the candidates have expressed about both the date and the format. Sept. 17 comes near the end of the third-quarter fund-raising period and could interfere with the candidates’ intense dash for cash."
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From Wired magazine which has another idea as to why Republican candidates might be reluctant:

"Most of the Republican candidates have supported President Bush's approach to the war in Iraq -- but the polls show that most Americans now oppose the war and Bush's decision to increase the number of troops there. Thus it doesn't seem like a great idea for the candidates to potentially expose themselves to graphic and heart-rending videos from soldiers' relatives and others who are likely to ask very difficult questions that would cast an extremely negative light on the candidates' policy positions."

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CNN Youtube Democratic Primary Election Debate

Another interesting report by Australia's ABC on the debate organised by CNN-Youtube with the Democratic contenders for their party's nomination:

"America's presidential candidates are discovering the benefits and perils of cyberspace campaigning in what is being called the YouTube election. Last night the candidates experienced the latest use of new media- the first presidential CNN/YouTube debate."

Read the transcript

Watch excerpts form the CNN-Youtube debate

And here the question/answer clip on which most of the commentaries seem to focus.

Youtube and the American Presidential Campaign Part 2

From The New York Times:

"The first of a new kind of presidential debate is scheduled for Monday night, one in which members of the general public pose questions to the candidates via homemade video. The debate is the latest front in the candidates’ running battle to keep up with the fast-paced changes wrought by the Internet on politics.

CNN and YouTube are sponsoring the debate, which will take place among the eight Democratic presidential candidates. They are sponsoring a similar debate for the nine Republican candidates on Sept. 17."

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CNN and Youtube presidential debates

Youtube and the American Presidential Campaign

James Wolcott from Vanity Fair:

"The YouTube Election
The "Vote Different" anti-Hillary ad, Newt Gingrich's Spanish apology, Mitt Romney's trail of flip-flops—this is the mouse-click mayhem of the 2008 campaign, in which anyone can join. It's the end of the old-fashioned, literary presidential epic, and the dawn of YouTube politics."


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From MNSBC:

"In 2004, YouTube didn't exist. Three years later, politicians have learned to fear and revere the video-sharing Web site that has become a vital part of the campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

From rapid dissemination of political blunders, often with funny tunes, to a new wave of music videos featuring scantily clad women singing the praises of their presidential favorites, YouTube.com has sparked a new interest in politics.

More than 2.5 million people have viewed "I've Got a Crush...On Obama" about Democratic Sen. Barack Obama since it was posted last month. A rebuttal video of women fighting over Obama and leading Republican contender Rudy Giuliani has been watched more than 500,000 times in four days."

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This is older but on the same topic. From the New York Times:

"Last week, Senator George Allen, the Virginia Republican, was caught on tape at a campaign event twice calling a college student of Indian descent a “macaca,” an obscure racial slur.

The student, working for the opposing campaign, taped the comments, and the video quickly appeared on YouTube, where it rocketed to the top of the site’s most-viewed list. It then bounced from the Web to the front page of The Washington Post to cable and network television news shows. Despite two public apologies by Senator Allen, and his aides’ quick explanations for how the strange word tumbled out, political analysts rushed to downgrade Mr. Allen’s stock as a leading contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination."

George Allan did loose the election in November by a very small margin.

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