July 10, 2006
YouTube Gets Political
With the advent of YouTube, a popular do it yourself video Web site, control of political advertisements is being wrestled away from candidates and into the hands of anyone with a camcorder and solid computer skills.
An average of 60,000 videos per day are added to YouTube, and 80 million videos are viewed each day. The site, which is less than two years old, is free to both viewers and contributors. Increasingly, YouTube is going political. The Washington Post found a number of amature political ads from both sides of the aisle, as well as song parodies and comic collections of clips. A search for "George Bush" came up with nearly 2,000 video results. Users can also join MySpace-esque "groups," some of which are political in nature.
YouTube may also become a free advertising site for more official campaigns: Political campaigns have been known to put up their own ads and speeches on the site. Tech-savvy former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards has his own "channel," a collection of videos compiled by a single contributor.
In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge
Posted by Buzz Webster at July 10, 2006 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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