Thursday, June 12, 2008

Bypassing the Media Via YouTube

Wikinomics describes Obama's YouTube Secret: Longer Videos. Some research shows that Obama is posting a lot of videos and is getting a lot of views, the longer ones (over 20 minutes) getting the most views.

"It’s a myth that NetGeners don’t follow politics on TV. Its just that we know that watching CNN for 5 minutes isn’t much more informative than watching it all day. We go to YouTube for greater insight, to use that NetGen norm of scrutiny, and short clips consisting of ads and quick sound bytes don’t  provide that opportunity...I get the impression that Clinton and McCain both view YouTube as a way to engage with a younger, and in their minds less mature, audience. Instead, like Obama, they should see it as a way of bypassing the mindlessness of mainstream political coverage, and engaging in a higher level of civic dialogue."

I still remember the old quip, there isn't enough time to cover anything in depth on 24 hour cable news. C-SPAN does it, but it's stuck covering Congress, which even I think is pretty boring most of the time. Now if you can give speeches like Obama, who wouldn't want to hear more than a sound bite? And for the campaign, posting to the web is free vs trying to get lots of television time (imagine buying a 30 minute block like Ross Perot did).

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